Rick Barnes finishes second in Associated Press Coach of the Year voting

Had the Associated Press Coach of the Year voting waited a week, Rick Barnes might’ve won it.

Why?

Well, the AP announced on Thursday that Virginia coach Tony Bennett was the overwhelming winner of the award. The voting took place before the NCAA Tournament, which meant the Cavaliers’ historic loss to No. 16-seed UMBC wasn’t taken into account.

Barnes came in second with 5 votes after leading the Vols to a share of the SEC regular season title and to the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament.

Here was the voting breakdown:

Voting for AP coach of year was done before the start of the NCAA Tournament by the AP Top 25 panel. Here's a breakdown of the votes:
Bennett 50; Rick Barnes 5; Chris Holtmann 4; Chris Mack 2; Chris Beard, Eric Musselman, Nate Oats, Bruce Pearl 1 each. https://t.co/fqILcVcixk

— AP Top 25 (@AP_Top25) March 29, 2018

Who knows if Barnes would’ve been able to make up 45 votes had the voting taken place a week later. Bennett did lead Virginia to a regular season ACC title and the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA Tournament after starting the season unranked. Still, no men’s basketball coach had ever lost to a No. 16-seed in the NCAA Tournament until Bennett did so.

Interestingly enough, Bruce Pearl received a vote for the job he did turning around Auburn, which shared the SEC regular season title with Tennessee.

Tennessee was predicted to finish 13th in the preseason SEC media poll. With essentially all of the Vols’ key players expected to return, preseason expectations will be a bit higher for Barnes in 2018-19.