Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
Sophomore guard Jordan Pope is transferring to Texas to play for the Longhorns in 2024-25.
On3Sports reported Wednesday that sophomore guard Jordan Pope, who averaged 17.6 points, 2.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game for Oregon State in 2023-24, is transferring to Texas to play for the Longhorns in 2024-25. Continue reading “Oregon State transfer Jordan Pope commits to Texas Longhorns basketball”
How head coach Rodney Terry approaches the transfer portal will indicate what he learned last offseason.
Texas head coach Rodney Terry is a good basketball coach. That much seems evident through two seasons in Austin. Whether or not he is good enough at roster building is up for debate.
Terry is 4-2 in the NCAA tournament at Texas. An Elite Eight finish and Big 12 tournament title headline Terry’s accomplishments on the Forty Acres. If given a talented roster, he can guide it to tournament wins. That his current team won a game in March Madness is impressive in its own right.
The team that Terry assembled for the 2023-24 campaign was lacking. It was incomplete because of a lackluster effort in the portal or an inability to close enough big time players. They were certainly available in the last transfer portal class. Texas just didn’t bring in the same volume of quality players it brought in over the prior two offseasons.
The last portal class didn’t yield a guard combo of Marcus Carr and Sir’Jabari Rice. It didn’t come close. There was no alpha forward or leader like Timmy Allen. A successful portal haul has to include a lot more of players like that for the Longhorns this offseason.
To his credit, Terry has an excellent recruiting class. Five-star shooting guard Tre Johnson headlines a class that includes two other big time players in Cam Scott and Nicolas Codie. Three freshmen likely aren’t going to transform the Texas basketball team on their own. They will probably need more help.
Texas has to do better in the transfer portal this offseason. It can’t afford to pass or fail to sign prospects like Arizona guard Caleb Love and Tennessee guard Dalton Knecht who we wrote about last offseason. Those players are still playing. The Longhorns are watching at home.
How Rodney Terry approaches this transfer portal will indicate whether or not his roster building philosophy has changed. It might need to change if Texas wants to get back to playing after the first weekend.
The Longhorns couldn’t have asked for a better first weekend than their 2024 tournament draw.
The Texas Longhorns (20-12) have been a frustrating team to watch on the basketball court this season. From inconsistent offense to lackluster defense, the team has looked disjointed for much of the year.
Despite the above concerns, this season’s tournament draw gives Texas a chance to reach the Sweet 16.
Winning in the NCAA tournament isn’t easy as Texas knows well. The program is 39-40 all-time in the NCAA tournament. That resume includes plenty of first round exits. The Longhorns suffered losses to the likes of No. 11 seed Northern Iowa, No. 14 Abilene Christian and No. 11 Nevada when Shaka Smart led the team.
Chris Beard and Rodney Terry had better success as head coaches in Austin. Beard earned the team’s first NCAA tournament victory since 2014 in his first season. Terry took Texas to its first Elite Eight since 2009.
The dysfunction for the current squad is more reminiscent of the Smart era than the last two tournament runs. Albeit, the Longhorns’ potential opponents provide matchups that could give Texas a chance to win a couple of games.
Texas is set to play the winner of the No. 10 seed play-in game between the Virginia Cavaliers and Colorado State Rams. Some question whether or not the Cavaliers should be in the tournament given their lackluster resume. The two teams weren’t worthy of a tournament bye. They were among the last teams in the field. That favors Texas.
Stylistically, some suggest Virginia’s suffocating defense is a bad matchup for Texas. If the Longhorns run through guard Max Abmas they could certainly see the matchup go in Virginia’s favor. Abmas isn’t very tall or fast and seems to have limited vertical jump. While an effective scorer, his lack of ability to create space for himself has created issues not only in consistent scoring but in protecting the basketball.
Despite the issues Virginia’s defense present, the Cavaliers’ offensive limitations were enough to keep them on the bubble. Should Texas get high scoring forward Dylan Disu and efficient forward Dillon Mitchell shot opportunities in the first game, they could advance to face the No. 2 Tennessee Volunteers.
Tennessee, like Texas, did not have the most impressive entrance to the tournament. The Volunteers lost to the Mississippi State Bulldogs in their first SEC tournament game, 73-56.
While Mississippi State is a good team, Tennessee’s launch to March Madness is similar to how it has fared in the NCAA tournament. Barnes’ squads have struggled in the postseason since he took over at Tennessee. The Vols should be favored in the potential matchup, but the Longhorns would have an opportunity to win.
There is plenty of reason to doubt Texas entering the weekend. The inconsistent product is among the top concerns. Even so, if the team was going to make another Sweet 16 appearance you would expect their tournament draw to look like it looks this year.
Rodney Terry thinks Texas is one of the best teams in college basketball.
The Texas basketball program has won five of its last 12 games. It currently sits at 19-11. Still, its head coach Rodney Terry believes the Longhorns are one of the top teams in college basketball.
Terry said the following of his team on Monday.
“We’ve played one of the hardest schedules in the country. Have we had a stumble here or there, just like every other team in this league has? Yeah, we’ve had that. But we’re one of the best teams in the country. We can play with anybody.”
It’s unclear how widely Terry is expanding the list of college basketball’s best teams, but he paints a different picture than the team’s record would indicate. While the Longhorns have played a difficult schedule, they haven’t performed to the level of a college basketball contender.
The Longhorns lost their two marquee nonconference games in the early going. They lost by 10 points to reigning national champion UConn before losing by 21 points against former Texas coach Shaka Smart and Marquette.
The conference slate has only been marginally better. The Longhorns are 3-6 in ranked games in conference play. That’s to say nothing of ugly losses to unranked West Virginia (9-20) and UCF (15-13).
Texas is good enough to make the NCAA tournament, but hasn’t earned much more acclaim than that. While there is still time to improve heading into college basketball’s postseason, there is work left to do for the Longhorns.
Texas will play Oklahoma for a higher tournament seed in Saturday’s regular season finale at 1 p.m. CT on ESPN.
Rodney Terry on if Texas should be in the NCAA Tournament:
“We’re one of the best teams in the country.” pic.twitter.com/zz42QvQRbp
— Texas Sports Unfiltered (@TSUnfiltered) March 5, 2024
Road warrior Longhorns take home third road victory of Big 12 play.
The Texas basketball team found its footing on Saturday after a heartbreaking overtime loss to the Houston Cougars. The Longhorns earned a 77-66 win over the TCU Horned Frogs in Fort Worth.
Entering the game, the Horned Frogs were 16-5 and on the positive end of the Big 12 standings at 5-3. The team held a 10-1 record at home on the year leading up to the game. Texas just wanted, and needed, this game more.
The Longhorns improve to 15-7 and 4-5 in conference play after a forgettable start to their Big 12 slate. The game saw Texas rally from an early 10-point deficit and go on a 37-16 run to close the first half. It was that level of resilience the team needed after digging an early hole in Big 12 play.
Texas shot a scorching 50.9% from the field as well as 50% from three-point range. Surprisingly, TCU shot even better from outside the three point arc with a 58.3% rate. The combination of strong shooting and interior presence was the difference.
The Longhorns out-rebounded TCU, 34-21. It was a welcomed change after watching Texas get bullied at the backboard in past games.
Texas guard Max Abmas and forward Dylan Disu had special performances for the game. Abmas led the team in scoring with 21 points followed by Disu with 15 and forward Dillon Mitchell with 13 points on 66% shooting.
The team’s 13-for-15 free throw rate adds to perhaps the Longhorns’ most complete performance of the year. They will look to stay in the win column in a tough matchup against Iowa State on Tuesday.
HORNS WIN! 🤘#HookEm pic.twitter.com/oXjcKxItgf
— Texas Men’s Basketball (@TexasMBB) February 3, 2024
After two top 11-victories, is Texas basketball capable of moving off the NCAA Tournament bubble?
The Texas Longhorns (14-5) are a different basketball team than they were a week prior. After two impressive wins in four days, it might be time to reconsider where they could be playing this postseason.
Through 17 games, Texas looked like it would be playing in the NIT. The lowlights from what was then a 12-5 team included an embarrassing loss to West Virginia followed by head coach Rodney Terry’s battle against opposing teams turning the Longhorns’ hand sign upside down.
We are past those low points now. Texas followed a buzzer-beating win over No. 9 Baylor on Saturday with a dominant 15-point road win over the No. 11 Oklahoma Sooners. All of the sudden, a team that seemingly had no impressive victories on the season now has an NCAA Tournament resume.
There’s plenty of basketball left to play with several conference matchups remaining. Texas will have plenty to prove in regard to how it can perform night in and night out. Even so, what we saw from the team over the last two games indicates if we get more of the high upside Longhorns, the team can move off the NCAA Tournament bubble and toward a No. 8 seed or higher.
Rodney Terry didn’t take kindly to the Golden Knight’s post-game handshakes.
Texas basketball lost an embarrassing game on Wednesday to UCF, 77-71. Continue reading “Social media reacts to Rodney Terry being upset about horns down”
The Longhorns have lost three of their last four games and sit near the bottom of the Big 12 conference.
Blowing a 12-point lead at home to UCF is inexcusable, but that’s exactly what happened on Wednesday night. Continue reading “Was Rodney Terry the right hire for Texas basketball?”
Texas basketball collapses against UCF and blows a 12-point halftime lead.
Texas basketball is a sinking ship. The season reached a new low in an surprising collapse against the UCF Golden Knights.
The Longhorns led the Knights by a score of 44-32 at halftime. It was an impressive half, but the Longhorns stopped impressing after that. UCF stormed back outscoring the Longhorns in the second half, 45-27.
Texas guards Ithiel Horton and Max Abmas attempted a combined 21 three-point field goals. Needless to say, that wasn’t a winning formula, but the two guards weren’t getting much help from elsewhere.
The Longhorns bench scored a grand total of seven points on the game. For context, the Knights bench scored 34.
Some saw our criticism of the Longhorns’ lack of portal acquisitions as unfair. After watching a 1-3 start to Big 12 play, the team’s lack of depth has shown up in a huge way with not enough stepping up to help the primary scorers.
There are great players on this Texas team. There just aren’t enough of them, and certainly not as much as there could have been had there been more urgency in building a more complete team in the offseason.
Texas got outscored by 18 points in the second half against UCF at home. This isn’t the start we hoped for in head coach Rodney Terry’s first full season. Due to the lack of depth, there probably won’t be much of any improvement.
The Longhorns are on the verge of missing the NCAA Tournament barring dramatic improvement. We will see if Terry can make do with the roster he assembled.
Texas Tech stuns Texas on the court defeating the Longhorns by double digits.
It’s basketball season in Austin. The Texas Longhorns opened Big 12 conference play with a 78-67 loss to Texas Tech.
The Texas Tech Red Raiders ran away with the game behind a high scoring performance from Pop Isaacs. The Texas Tech guard put up 21 points behind a 3-for-5 three-point shooting night and 7-for-15 performance from the field.
Texas is facing the harsh reality of a poor transfer portal haul following the exit of several key players in the offseason. We were critical of the lack of movement by the team in the way of portal additions, and the lack of contributing Longhorns proved evident on Saturday. 54 of the team’s 67 points came from Texas guards Tyrese Hunter and Max Abmas and forward Dillon Mitchell.
The loss drops Texas to 11-3. The team certainly could have gotten off to a worse start, but has lost to perhaps every quality opponent it has faced this season. It isn’t the start we would have hoped to see from the team through 14 games.
Texas Tech, who went an abysmal 16-16 last season, proved to be the better team by a wide margin on Texas’ home floor. Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry has plenty to work on if this team is to make another NCAA Tournament run.
Texas resumes play on the road against Cincinnati on Tuesday night.
How we feelin’ #RedRaiderNation‼️#TTW | @JFergPros pic.twitter.com/HZ9DqZocT3
— Texas Tech Basketball (@TexasTechMBB) January 7, 2024
