Texas coach Rodney Terry cares more about his next game, not the rest; can you blame him?
Head coach Rodney Terry and the folks in the Texas men’s basketball program understand the big picture for the 2024 season.
They know the Longhorns (15-8, 4-6 Big 12) have positioned themselves for a fourth straight trip to the NCAA Tournament. They also know that Texas must still make four road trips to face nationally ranked teams: No. 4 Kansas, No. 5 Houston, No. 13 Baylor and No. 23 Texas Tech. And even though they might not admit it, they know anything less than a .500 run through these last eight games of the regular season could threaten their NCAA hopes entering the postseason.
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But that doesn’t mean Terry will take the bait about the singular importance of Saturday’s home game against struggling West Virginia, which is as close to a layup as a game can get in the Big 12.
“I don’t think West Virginia is struggling,” Terry said after his team’s Friday workout. “They have all their guys back (and) have one of the more talented rosters in the Big 12. For us, it’s no different than what we have said for every game: The big game is the one in front of us.”
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Looking for better results this time
You can’t blame Terry for focusing on West Virginia (8-14, 3-6), even if the Mountaineers haven’t won a road game all season and are one of just two Big 12 teams — along with Oklahoma State — without any realistic NCAA hopes aside from winning the conference tournament. After all, West Virginia did beat Texas 76-73 at home Jan. 13, and the team did welcome back 6-foot-11 Jesse Edwards three games ago after the preseason All-Big 12 pick missed more than a month with an injury.
“We had one of our not-so-great games of the year when we played up there,” Terry said, alluding to Texas' season-high 22 turnovers and the 41 free throws by West Virginia. “Can we play better in terms of executing offensively and defensively? We can.”
Goals to go: more Quad 1 wins
The Longhorns will have to in order to retain their relatively lofty NET ranking, a metric favored by the NCAA selection committee. Texas is No. 38 in NET, a drop of seven spots after Tuesday’s home loss to Iowa State. The team has four Quadrant 1 wins, another tool the NCAA likes to use when selecting its tournament teams. Only 11 teams in the country have more Quad 1 wins than the Longhorns, who can add to that total in their four remaining road trips as well as a home date with ranked Oklahoma in the regular-season finale March 9.
Not that Terry will admit to crunching such numbers with his players.
“What we can control right now is being prepared for a talented West Virginia team,” he said. “We can't control anything outside of that. We'll have a tremendous challenge (Saturday) at our place, and we've got to be excited about competing in another Big 12 game.”
Saturday's game
West Virginia (8-14, 3-6) at Texas (15-8, 4-6), 2 p.m., LHN, 1300
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry worried about West Virginia, not NCAAs
