Rick Barnes comments on Tennessee assistant Justin Gainey’s candidacy for NC State job
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Rick Barnes had plenty to talk about on the last Saturday in March, with Tennessee on the precipice of the first Final Four in program history for the third straight year.
With his No. 6 seed Volunteers playing top seed Michigan in the Midwest Region final on Sunday afternoon (2:15 p.m. ET, CBS) in Chicago, Barnes was breaking it all down with reporters during his off-day press conference on Saturday afternoon. Barnes has Tennessee in its third Elite 8 in a row, and this time he really wants to break through and get to the Final Four.
But Barnes had other business to take care of that had nothing to do with Sunday’s huge game. He was asked about assistant coach Justin Gainey possibly getting the NC State head coaching job that was vacated earlier this week when Will Wade went back to LSU.
According to a report by Cory Smith of PackPower247 earlier Saturday afternoon, Gainey was set to be interviewed for the NC State job on Saturday. Gainey went to NC State, so there is a deep connection there between assistant coach and school, and Barnes was asked for his thoughts on the entire matter.
“I hope he gets that job because there is nobody that loves NC State more than Justin Gainey,” Barnes told reporters. “If NC State knew him, they’d be begging him to be their head coach.”
According to the Kalshi market, Gainey is the current favorite to land the NC State head coaching job, with Saint Louis head coach Josh Schertz being another leading candidate. Here are those current odds to land the job in Raleigh:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
