With the 2024-25 season set to tip off, the Texas Longhorns are ready to make a statement as they face off against Ohio State on opening night in Las Vegas. Head Coach Rodney Terry spoke to the media before the team’s departure for highly anticipated matchup, giving fans insight into the team’s preparation and competitive mindset.
On facing a Power 5 team on opening night:
“Can we change that? (laughs) You know what, you get challenged right off the bat. (Ohio State is a) well-coached team, Jake (Diebler) has done a great job with this program there. He’s got some great returners in (Bruce) Thornton, Thornton is one of the best guards in the country. I think you want to find out early where you are, we played two Big 12 teams to this point right now (in closed-door scrimmages). We jumped right in there in terms of playing well-coached teams, teams with older players, which we will play on Monday night again. I think what it does for you, really helps set the tone for us in November, it’s going to be about our identity. Who are we going to be in November? We’re going to be a team every night that comes in and tries to guard really hard, or we’re going to be a team that values taking care of the basketball. We’re going to get tested on all those things at an elite level at a neutral court. So I think it will be great for us. It’s great exposure, we’re playing in a prime time slot, so there will be a lot of eyeballs around the country on Texas basketball.”
On the scrimmages against TCU and Colorado:
“I think we had great effort, great energy. I thought we had great bench energy. We didn’t have any guys moping around about or pouting about playing time. I thought everyone was really connected and locked in together in both the scrimmages. I thought we did a better job in our second scrimmage taking care of the ball than we did in the first one, which is again to be expected, especially early in the year, just learning the value (of) taking care of the basketball, making simple plays, and then at the end of the day just getting used to playing with each other. Familiarity on the game situations. Familiarity with the game situations. You can only assimilate so much in practice. When you get out there between the lines in the game situation, guys have to have a feel for what guys are capable of doing, what they’re not capable of doing, what positions they’re good at…That all comes into play in game situations. But we did a better job of taking the ball (against Colorado). We had something like 21 turnovers in the first game, and in the last game, we had nine, three at half. So we did a much better job of just keeping the game simple.”
On closing the gap between veterans and newcomers:
“Young players, we always have those guys try to have an attitude and approach every day. And practice is a game. Every day is a game, right? The one thing with young players, is you’re fighting experience, but experience every day in practice is much different than the high school experience for them…Everybody’s been the best player on their team. A walk-on has been the best player on their high school teams. It teaches those guys really quick that they’ve got to play with a lot of effort and energy on every play. We have an energy and effort chart that we have up after every practice, after every game, and it shows guys energy and teaches them how to be effort players. You can’t say ‘You know what, run the floor really hard.’ No, we charted running the floor. You ran it about five times, really hard in practice today or in the game…Just teaching guys how to play hard and how to be a multiple-effort player. They gain experience in practice every day…They’re going to be learning every day for the rest of their lives that they make this an occupation, just like coaching. Veterans, coaches, are learning every day.”
2024-25 Texas Longhorns November Schedule
| DATE | OPPONENT | TIME | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mon, Nov 4 | vs Ohio State * | 9:00 PM | ||
| Fri, Nov 8 | vs Houston Christian | 7:00 PM | ||
| Tue, Nov 12 | vs Chicago State | 7:00 PM | ||
| Sat, Nov 16 | vs Mississippi Valley State | 4:00 PM | ||
| Thu, Nov 21 | vs Syracuse * | 6:00 PM | ||
| Fri, Nov 29 | vs Delaware State | 8:00 PM |