Tennessee coach Rick Barnes felt that assistant coach Desmond Oliver was worth more than he was being paid, so he boosted the salary of his assistant coach and inadvertently committed a minor NCAA violation in the process.

"It was important to me that Des Oliver made the same amount of money as (Vols assistant Michael Schwartz)," Barnes told USA TODAY. "I just felt those two positions needed to be equal. They felt it wasn't in the budget. I just said, 'I am going to pay it myself.'"

Barnes felt Oliver's salary wasn't commensurate with what peers in the profession were making. He didn't know his salary supplementation was an NCAA rules violation and openly told his supervisor of his plan to supplement Oliver's pay, which resulted in UT self-reporting the violation to the NCAA in 2017, according to an open records request.

Barnes was told to stop, and Oliver was subsequently awarded a raise. Neither the SEC or the NCAA punished him beyond UT's self-reprimand to educate its head coach on the rule.