Rick Barnes and Brad Brownell go way back – probably further back than Barnes even knows.
The past Clemson basketball coach, in Barnes, met the present, in Brownell, in a special exhibition Sunday between Tennessee and Clemson to raise funds for the Salvation Army’s efforts in hurricane relief.
The two coaches’ paths crossed first while Brownell was on the road recruiting as an assistant at UNC-Wilmington in the mid-90s, when Barnes coached the Tigers from 1994-98.
“He probably wouldn’t even remember that,” Brownell told TigerNet. “I actually went to a clinic back in the day in Myrtle Beach when he was the head coach at Clemson.