KNOXVILLE - Tennessee basketball Rick Barnes won five of his past six encounters with North Carolina and Roy Williams, and he informed his team of the statistic this week.
At least that's what Shembari Phillips claimed Friday, two days before the Volunteers play the seventh-ranked Tar Heels in Chapel Hill.
"Knowing Rick Barnes, of course he wants to win every game," Phillips said before the morning's video session and ensuing practice, "but a game like this he wants to win really badly."
Within 15 minutes Barnes disputed telling his team of his success while at Texas against the Tar Heels since Williams left Kansas for his alma mater in 2003.
"I don't remember saying any of that," Barnes said. "I think every team is different. What I did show them was what teams have to do to win against anybody that's good. The fact is, you get confidence by doing your job and getting ready to prepare for it. We talked a lot about rebounding. We talked a lot about you have to play hard and take care of the ball.
"I don't think my personal record against anybody (matters) because it's not me, it's the players. If Roy and I played one-on-one, I think I would win. But I'm sure he thinks he would win. Believe me, we both have had the chance to coach good teams."
On paper Williams will have the much better team for this encounter in Chapel Hill, where Barnes remains an enemy for at least a portion of North Carolina's fan base.
While at Clemson, Barnes had multiple clashes with legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith, for whom the Tar Heels' arena is named. The two coaches memorably had to be separated during the 1995 ACC tournament. Barnes took exception to Smith yelling at one of his players following a foul in the final minutes of a blowout and charged at him.
"You coach your team, I'll coach my team," Barnes told Smith, according to reports from the game. "You don't have any right to talk to my players
After the face-to-face encounter the game nearly ended in a bench-clearing brawl when Clemson's Bill Harder delivered a hard foul on North Carolina's Donald Williams as he went in for a final-seconds dunk attempt.
"You go back in life and there are some things you wish would have happened differently," Barnes said Friday, "and that's one of them, because I don't want anybody to ever think that I didn't have the utmost respect for North Carolina basketball and Coach Smith."
Barnes said Smith was one of five coaches - John Wooden, Bobby Knight, Vince Lombardi and Tom Landry were the others - he studied extensively during the formative years of his coaching career.
"Those were the five guys that I really wanted to know everything I could about," he explained. "You think about it, those five guys made an incredible impact on their profession. People still talk about the Carolina break, the Carolina shuffle, the sideline break - all started under Coach Smith. I could talk about each one of them.
"I have nothing but great respect for that program and I have great respect that Roy would play us and give us this opportunity, because he didn't have to do it."
Barnes was 1-9 against the Tar Heels while at Clemson, but his more recent success against North Carolina while at Texas included one win in Greensboro and two at the Dean Dome.
Tennessee and North Carolina haven't met since 2006, and the Vols are 1-8 all-time against the Tar Heels.
"We all know who North Carolina is," Phillips said. "From the beginning we've just got to go in there and just play our game, do what we do, do what Coach lays out for us, and everything will take care of itself. I have 100 percent confidence in all of my guys and in this coaching staff.
"I feel like they're going to put us in position to win, and everything else will take care of itself."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.