Welcome to Bevo’s Fake Nuts, our weekly column on the Texas Longhorns.
It’s a good thing Texas fans only care about basketball for one week in March. It’s a good thing Arch Manning and Quinn Ewers and Maalik Murphy are all generating positive reviews out of spring ball. It’s a good thing the baseball team’s playing well. Because boy oh boy, if this fanbase cared about basketball right now…
To recap Texas’s offseason so far:
- …
That’s about it. The biggest things that have happened are that Arterio Morris’s legal situation is somebody else’s headache now and that Tyrese Hunter might go pro. Max Abmas was in town this week, and there are other portal targets out there, and there’s still time, but those that pay attention are getting impatient, and as the weeks drone on and the excitement of beating Xavier lessens, the reality of Rodney Terry is starting to set in.
It’s important to say what Rodney Terry is not, because we don’t want to be Rodney Terry haters. Rodney Terry is not, to our knowledge, a bad guy. Rodney Terry is not, by our impression, a bad coach. Rodney Terry is not, by any reasonable evaluation, as expensive as the better coaches Texas could have gotten. We don’t know if the decision was financial, but one interpretation of Terry’s should–have–been–shocking promotion to the full time role is that Chris Del Conte went to the basketball boosters, pitched them on spending 70% more money (plus a not-insignificant buyout) for Jerome Tang or to make a run at Scott Drew, and was asked what Rodney Terry would cost, to which Del Conte likely internally replied, “Shit. He might pay us for the job.”
Rodney Terry is a little bit like Rupert Grint. The argument in his favor was that he was a nice man who performed well in a very specific role. This is a natural line of thinking, but it isn’t a good way to select people for jobs. Grint played a mean Ron Weasley, but I wouldn’t recommend him to be Britain’s next prime minister.
Rodney Terry is also a little bit like Hubert Davis. He had one great little run and other results throughout his coaching career have been mixed. Being compared to UNC in men’s basketball would normally be a good thing, but things aren’t normal right now in Chapel Hill. In Chapel Hill, they’re landing transfers, but the ones in so far are rough.
What does all this mean, having had a few weeks to think about it? Texas, intentionally or not, is gambling. The upside with Terry is great. If he can effectively steer the ship, the Horns will have one of the highest-value coaches they could have gotten in terms of dollars and cents. The downside is low. With the new arena already built, the bones of a great program will still be there for whoever comes in next. It’s a waiting game, and it might not work, but Texas has collectively decided to play. The dice roll on.
I will always believe had Texas known Chris Beard would be hired by an SEC rival two months after being let go, they would never have let him go to begin with.
They never imagined he would be hired so soon and by an SEC school to boot. It shows how you can be fooled.