COLUMBIA — It’s been a long time since Rick Barnes has coached a game at South Carolina. So long, that the last time he did, the Gamecocks were playing not in Colonial Life Arena — but up the street in the old Carolina Coliseum, now used as a practice facility.
That was Dec. 17, 1996, when Barnes was coaching a Clemson team ranked eighth nationally, and would go on to reach the Sweet 16 of the NCAA Tournament. Nearly two decades later, Barnes returns to Columbia with a different team in a very different situation — a rebuilding Tennessee program which will try and slow USC’s push toward its first NCAA bid in a dozen years.