KNOXVILLE - Derek Reese knew something was up.
One of Tennessee's assistant coaches, Adam Howard, left the program shortly into the season last November, but the everyday grind of basketball and its practices, film study, workouts and games took precedence in the forward's mind.
So when the Volunteers dropped the hammer on head coach Donnie Tyndall for reasons related to an NCAA investigation of his former program at Southern Mississippi just two weeks after the season ended in March, it came as a surprise to Reese and some of the players.
"I kind of suspected something, at the beginning of the season, but we kind of forgot about it," Reese recalled after scoring 25 points in his Rocky Top League game on Wednesday night. "Coach Tyndall told us, 'Don't worry about it, everything's just fine.' I just forgot. When it happened, it kind of was a shock. I wasn't expecting it, because I kind of forgot about it."
Reese, fellow senior Armani Moore and rising junior Robert Hubbs are the three Tennessee players adjusting to the third different head coach of their careers.
That kind of turnover, from Cuonzo Martin to Tyndall to first-year coach Rick Barnes, is never something a player expects to experience when he arrives on campus as a freshman.
The feeling-out process between a new coaching staff and its team doesn't happen overnight, but all three players praised the family emphasis Barnes and his assistant coaches have shown so far, and they seem genuinely excited to play for the former Texas coach.
"Once you go through x-amount of coaches, you never know what the next coach is going to expect," Moore said. "But I think everybody's responding pretty well. We don't have a lot of guys who don't like to work, so that makes it a whole lot easier, too."
Barnes said in April that the transition was the toughest on Moore, who began to flourish under Tyndall with season averages of 10.3 points and 6.7 rebounds as a junior last season.
The two connected, though, through their mirroring faiths.
"He's one of the first players I had a really serious talk with," Barnes said during his visit to the Big Orange Tip-Off Club in late April. "He kind of wanted to step away from the game. I sat down with him, and we had a great talk.
"My Bible was there on my desk, and I went through Psalms 1 with him. That night he'd sent me a wonderful text that said, 'Coach, I am really glad that you're here and I know that God brought us together.' He's a great kid, and those are the kids that you love."
Moore said he never gave transferring from Tennessee any consideration despite a third coaching transition.
"To me, it's just a minor setback for a major comeback," he said. "I feel like God doesn't make mistakes. He always knows what he's doing. God knew, when I came in, that I wasn't going to end up with the same coach that I came with, so now it's about staying locked in and mentally focused and keep working on my game.
"It doesn't matter who my coach is; as long as he's trying to help me, I'm cool with it."
Reese used his first one-on-one meeting with Barnes to quiz his new coach about the NBA players he produced at Texas, the biggest name being Oklahoma City Thunder star Kevin Durant.
Tyndall's departure had Reese, who averaged nearly seven points and six rebounds in SEC play last season, wondering how his role would change under Barnes, but the new coach's résumé eases those concerns.
"It still bothered me a lot because I finally felt like I got some consistency and something good was going, and I didn't want to change that," Reese said. "It was tough at first. But you can't beat Coach Barnes, what he's done in the past.
"You can't beat that."
Hubbs believes Barnes's history of success makes the transition easier.
"He's definitely one of the top coaches in all of college basketball, so I'm excited to play for him," said the former five-star recruit, who recalled getting a phone call from Texas during his recruitment but admitted Austin was too far away from home for him to seriously consider playing there.
"He has a lot of experience. He knows what he's talking about, and the assistant coaches do, too. It shows in the stats, NCAA tournaments just about every year, so it's going to be pretty fun."
All three veterans came to Tennessee to play for Martin. Now they're adjusting to a new coaching staff and a new way of life with a degree of uncertainty about how their roles will change this upcoming season. Again.
"Things happen, things come up," Moore said. "Adversity hits. It's just all about how you respond to it."
Contact Patrick Brown at pbrown@timesfreepress.com.