Rick Barnes calls Miami (OH) ‘great storyline’ entering Round 1 game
By David Wasson
Published:
Few teams in the 2026 NCAA Tournament have captured the nation’s interest quite like the Miami (OH) RedHawks, who turned in a perfect 31-0 regular season and sweated their way through Selection Sunday before authoring a First Four victory Wednesday night against SMU.
Next up for the 11th-seeded RedHawks in March Madness is the sixth-seeded Tennessee Volunteers on Friday in a Midwest Regional first-round game (4:25 pm ET, TBS), a team coached by Hall of Famer Rick Barnes who was quick Thursday to warn that Miami’s talent from 3-point range can be dangerous to any opponent.
“It’s a great story line, number one, and they’ve earned it,” Barnes said in his pregame media availability. “If you go through the season and do what they did. Certainly, I thought they were terrific last night. Everybody is going to talk about their 3-point shooting, but there’s so much more than that. I understand, and there should be a buzz about them because they’re a really good basketball team and extremely well-coached, play hard, and that do everything you have to do to win that many basketball games.”
Barnes added that, partially due to Miami’s 41 3-point attempts against SMU in Dayton, the Volunteers (22-11) will need to buckle down and play strong basketball in order to advance to the second round.
“We have to do what’s got us here at a very high level. We certainly have great respect for them,” Barnes said. “I think our team understands that we’re not one of those teams that can just show up and beat anybody. We learned that this year. We lost some games that we felt like we should have won. We learned from that. But you do know that this time of year, that if you’re playing this time of year, you’re a really good basketball team.”
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An APSE national award-winning writer and editor, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.
