Rick Barnes has a unique challenge. Before he arrived in Austin, Tex., the Longhorns were a solid program but hardly a national one. Thirteen years later, Barnes has consistently recruited top talent and consistently competed for Big 12 titles. Texas is a national program with a large following. If the expectations for Texas fans used to be "give me something decent to watch until football comes back," it is now "win the Big 12, go the Final Four, win a national title and give me something to decent to watch until football comes back."

Indeed, the bar has been raised. Barnes keeps recruiting top talent. But that talent hasn't translated into sustained on-court success in recent seasons. The disappointments are well documented. In 2010, Texas went from the nation's No. 1 ranking to an uninspiring first-round exit in the NCAA tournament. In 2011, Texas's defense spent much of the Big 12 season flirting with historical greatness; by March, the Longhorns had bowed out in a brutal loss to Arizona in the tournament's second round.

Barnes's last Elite Eight appearance came in 2008. His last Final Four appearance came in 2003. Since then, Barnes has recruited, developed, and sent a bevy of talented players to the NBA, including the likes of Kevin Durant, LaMarcus Aldridge, D.J. Augustin, T.J. Ford, Royal Ivey and Daniel Gibson.

These facts give the impression that Barnes is a talented recruiter but a so-so coach. Or that he's more concerned with getting players to the NBA -- hardly an ignoble goal -- than winning national championships. In 2010, Barnes made a comment to that effect to a reporter from ESPN The Magazine, saying he would "love to win a national championship" but that he wasn't "obsessed with it," because "we're obsessed with these guys trying to live their NBA dream." You could see why this might make Texas fans just a little bit uncomfortable.

Barnes has occasionally attempted to clarify his comments in the time since, but perhaps the best explanation he's given for them came in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram last week. Barnes was speaking to reporter Mike Jones, whose piece pokes into the mess of expectations Barnes has created in many ways thanks to his own success, and Jones gave Barnes a chance to clarify his comments on the NBA draft picks vs. team success dynamic:

"If you asked me in the end would I want us to win a bunch of championships and our players not succeed -- I wouldn't want to do that. But on the other hand, if you could guarantee that every player you coach could have a chance to live out his dream -- and I'm not just talking about basketball, but life -- and that means your guys aren't going to win a championship, what would you take?

"I'd have to say I would want our guys to have a chance to live their dreams. Does that mean I don't care? That's not what I'm saying at all. Because I'm smart enough to realize if these guys live their dream, we're going to keep putting ourselves in position and one day it is going to come together, and we're going to win it.

"We do this for a lot of reasons. But if I didn't have the desire to win it, I wouldn't do this."

Really, the idea that Barnes didn't want to win a national championship was always a frivolous one. Of course he wants to win, right? But when you combine those old comments with his track record in recent seasons -- recruiting elite talent, watching those players leave for the NBA draft, and putting disappointing teams on the floor in the interim -- it's easy for fans to form negative impressions. Is Barnes just a good recruiter? Can he put freshmen together into a national championship contender? Why do his teams seem to fade out, rather than improve, over the course of a season?

The answers aren't quite so easy. Yes, Texas fans have big expectations. Yes, those expectations are largely of Barnes's making. Now, ironically enough, Barnes is in many ways a victim of his own success. But all of this theoretical noodling won't change many minds. Texas needs to win, but more than anything, it needs to win in March. Until that happens again, Barnes will continue to face lingering pressure -- pressure that wouldn't exist had he not succeeded in the first place.