Rick Barnes has traveled a lot of miles since he burned grooves in the road between Hickory, N.C., and Knoxville.

His future wife, Candy, was a University of Tennessee student in the mid-1970s. Barnes was playing basketball at hometown Lenoir-Rhyne College.

That's when Barnes got his first taste of "Big Orange Passion."

"I went to a football game her senior year when Tennessee was playing Tulsa," Barnes said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I remember Tennessee won, but it was a close game and the fans were all booing (then UT head coach) Bill Battle.

"The next day I got the paper and read where somebody had put a U-Haul in front of his house after they had won. I thought, man, they mean business here."

These days, Barnes leads a team wearing a different flavor of Orange.

For the Texas basketball coach, he's coming back to familiar territory when the Longhorns visit UT at Thompson-Boling Arena at noon Saturday.

"I think my mom is coming over the mountain (from Hickory) if she's feeling well enough," Barnes said less than 12 hours after the Longhorns (8-2) beat Arkansas Wednesday night. "I know I've made that drive many, many times."

All kinds of plots and subplots exist with Barnes bringing his youthful Longhorns to play the Vols (9-2).

The most obvious storyline involves memories of last December.

UT, still searching for its identity, traveled to Texas and battered the more experienced Longhorns 95-78.

It was the kind of signature victory that helped propel the Vols to a 22-8 record and a No. 2-seeding in the NCAA tournament.

"I thought Tennessee played really, really well and went right at us," Barnes said. "I think at one point we were down by 20 and they just dominated that game from start to finish."

Don't look now, but this is a whole new-look Texas team.

In the 80-76 victory against Arkansas, the Longhorns started four freshmen and a sophomore.

"It's one thing being young and inexperienced, but it's another being young, inexperienced and talented," Barnes said. "We've got some talented players."

Kevin Durant leads the list. The 6-foot-10 freshman averages 21.2 points and had 26 points with 13 rebounds against the Razorbacks.

Barnes said there's "no doubt" Durant is the most talented freshman he has ever been around.

"He's extremely gifted in so many areas and he just turned 18 this fall," he said. "In recruiting, you never know what you're going to get until you're with them every day.

"But he has far exceeded what we expected with his ability to work and desire to get better. They've all been that way. The chemistry has been outstanding."

Sophomore A.J. Abrams adds 16.6 points a game, freshman D.J. Augustin 13.0 and freshman Justin Mason 9.7.

Just don't expect Barnes to dwell on last year's loss to UT with this new group of players.

"They look at Tennessee right now and they've seen them on TV, and they know they beat Oklahoma State," Barnes said. "But they don't even know about Oklahoma State. They don't know about any of it.

"Sometimes I'll try to take some angles with them, but I can tell they have no idea what I'm talking about by the way they look back at you."

They're too young.

Barnes remembers those days, burning the recruiting trails, running into former UT assistant Tom Deaton while trying to recruit Tim O'Shea to Davidson.

O'Shea ended up picking Boston College over Tennessee and Davidson.

Guess who was a student assistant at Boston College when O'Shea arrived. UT's second-year coach Bruce Pearl.

"I don't know Bruce well, but I know he would tell you one of his mentors is Tom Davis (former Boston College, Stanford and Iowa coach)," Barnes said. "(Maryland coach) Gary Williams would tell you the same thing, and I worked for Gary.

"So I know their system and Bruce has done a great job with it and added his own flavor to it. We're kind of linked that way."