Coach Barnes knows Vols’ venue challenge
KNOXVILLE — Rick Barnes knows something he’ll enjoy today at Iowa State’s basketball arena in Ames, Iowa. His 22nd-ranked Tennessee Volunteers will play there at 4 p.m. EST as part of the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
“They’ve got really good nuts you can buy up on the concourse that are really special,” the Tennessee coach said Friday. “I’ll make sure I get some of those.”
This will be an unknown setting for the Vols (14-5) — the programs have met just twice before, both times more than 40 years ago and neither in Ames — but Barnes will be in a familiar environment. While coaching at Texas from 1998 to 2015, he went 15-9 against Iowa State, but he was just 4-6 in Hilton Coliseum.
The nuts at the 14,356-seat venue may be tasty, but the environment is hostile.
“They talk about Hilton magic. They talk about that,” said Barnes, who was 9-2 at home against the Cyclones. “They’ve lost some, but they come home and have big wins. That happens at a lot of places. I just think it’s an area of the country where people do love basketball.”
Iowa State (11-8) is off to a 2-6 start in league play as it has replaced four senior starters from last year’s Big
12 tournament championship team. Yet the Hilton magic had an impact last Saturday when the Cyclones beat No. 8 Texas Tech 70-52 at home in front of 14,384 fans.
“I have so much respect for Iowa State’s crowd,” Texas Tech coach Chris Beard said after the game. “These are basketball people.”
In true road games Iowa State is 0-5 this year, but at Hilton Coliseum it is 7-3, with attendance at each of its first four Big 12 home games over 14,000.
“I think it’s a lot like the Midwest,” Barnes said. “Whether you’re at Iowa State, Kansas State, Missouri, Kansas, those schools, they love their teams. Their fans are really basketball fans.”
Barnes started his tenure at Texas 4-2 at Hilton Coliseum before losing his last four games there from 2012 to 2015. But like Beard, he has appreciation for the venue.
“You know when you go to those places over a number of years, you learn what each town has to offer,” Barnes said. “Wonderful people there when you walk in the building. Just good people.”
And they go nuts for basketball. Contact David Cobb at dcobb@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DavidWCobb and on Facebook at facebook.com/volsupdate.