Terry on-the-fencers, how you like him now?

Htown77 said:
Beard did in fact succeed. Beard won our first NCAA tournament game since Rick Barnes and built an Elite 8 team that won the Big XII Tournament year 2 despite Shaka Smart leaving him a poop sandwich when he arrived.

Here is what we had when Beard showed up:
1. Andrew Jones
2. Brock Cunningham (only player still left in year 2)
3. Courtney Ramey
4. Jase Ferbes

Here is who Beard brought in:
1. Timmy Allen
2. Marcus Carr
3. Dylan Disu
4. Christian Bishop
5. Tyrese Hunter
6. Sir'Jabari Rice
7. Arterio Morris
8. Dillion Mitchel

You know who else Chris Beard brought in and hired? Rodney Terry. Beard assembled a great enough staff and team that could take over and win if Beard was not there.

Beard absolutely succeeded at making Texas Basketball great again. Beard absolutely left Texas Basketball in a better situation than he found it. To pretend he did not is disingenuous, especially when Beard coached 20% of the season and was responsible for bringing Texas this staff and team. Unfortunately, Beard's time and amount of success was cut short due to an off the court issue. Criticize Beard all you want for his off the court issue, but do not act like he did not succeed here or bring Texas basketball back.

As far as Terry, no one is denying his success or that he did a fantastic job holding the team together and winning following Beard's departure. Even if Terry does not win going forward (and assuming nothing bad happens off the court), I think Terry has forever cemented a positive legacy among fans after what he did this season (not mention his great success as an assistant as well).

It is really annoying that some Texas fans feel other Texas fans are haters or are trying to make some sort of "Beard v. Terry" narrative (by the way, in his press conference, Terry gave Beard a lot of credit and would not agree with pretending Beard does not deserve credit). Both were part of and deserve credit for this team's success. As far as Texas fans go, I have yet to meet a single Texas fan who does not like or support Terry. Not having full confidence in Terry after looking at Terry's heard coaching record does not mean someone is a hater or dislikes Terry. I do not see anyone hating on Terry here, but I do see posters critically evaluating his record and expressing a reasonable view that the odds are against Terry.

It is very clear from history that interim coaches who take over permanently in these situations do not tend to succeed. That said, most thought Texas would not make the Elite 8 following Beard's firing. Terry proved the doubters wrong this year, and I think we all hope he proves the skeptics (including myself) wrong again moving forward! If you are not a doubter, then look forward to Terry proving the skeptics wrong again! :hookem:
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This nailed everything correctly. Beard was a huge success for Texas. His personal life stopped him, not his basketball. This was a super talented TEAM. No real superstars, just a lot of good pieces and even when he left it still worked. All rt had to do was not run it into the ditch which is how he worked out and now he has the full time job. He was not my pick because he was average on his own merits. He gets a big contract at Texas, the players love him and we will see if he is better now than at utep and fresno.
 
Jacob Johnson said:
Love Tyrese Hunter and not trying to sound rude when I say this but I don’t see him getting drafted with the season he had. He’s a 6ft guard who struggled to shoot the ball this season. I get he wants to get to the league but another year will do him good so I see him returning. I believe Disu might do the same as well but both should definitely return next season.
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This is normal, the right thing to do, and expected for a player like Hunter. Players enter their name in the draft thereby getting evaluated and told how to improve their game in order to get drafted in the future. I seriously doubt he's expecting to get drafted, he's just looking for what the NBA says he needs to improve. Wise move, many players do this.
 
ViperHorn said:
I wasn't expecting that. Good for RT for setting the record straight. (Beard's version probably is a little different.)
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This is not suprising to me. To believe that he was going to stay quiet with the detractors he has was a pipe dream. I dont think you get to pat yourself on the back for someone elses accomplishments but maybe thats why he was never successful elsewhere. I doubt he decided who got recruited or how that went because Beard seems like a guy who controlled his basketball life (just not his personal life). terry may have recruited 3 but they knew he was not the coach so this just has a sour smell to it. Time will tell if he stinks it up or not.
 
longhornlegend said:
This is not suprising to me. To believe that he was going to stay quiet with the detractors he has was a pipe dream. I dont think you get to pat yourself on the back for someone elses accomplishments but maybe thats why he was never successful elsewhere. I doubt he decided who got recruited or how that went because Beard seems like a guy who controlled his basketball life (just not his personal life). terry may have recruited 3 but they knew he was not the coach so this just has a sour smell to it. Time will tell if he stinks it up or not.
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I get the feeling that some of you don't have a clue of how basketball recruiting works, and it shows. And the two highly touted players that didn't budge when the woman beater got fired proves his point. He was the primary recruiter for both.
 
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What exactly did Coach Terry say that set people off?
ALL of the coaches in any sport that I remember hearing or reading what they said ALL creditied their coaching staffs for recruiting and retaining players.
Saban is one of the best at that. Sark does as well
 
Sometimes, especially in football, when an assistant coach leaves (QB coach for example), so do the players he recruited. To give RT no respect or credit for recruiting three starters is way off.
 
LonghornCatholic said:
Sometimes, especially in football, when an assistant coach leaves (QB coach for example), so do the players he recruited. To give RT no respect or credit for recruiting three starters is way off.
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And Texas is STILL in a really good position to get the #1 player in the class for 24, without Beard. Why? Because of Coach Terry.
 
Regardless of who recruited them, 1 thing that appeared to be obvious to me from the Rice game on...this team LOVES RT. He is right in saying Chris didn't put this team together by himself. Also, it doesn't sound to me that he's overstating his (RT"s) involvement in recruiting this team (he credits himself with 3 recruits). The love this team showed for RT speaks volumes to me about him as a coach & a person. Hope I'm right. Time will tell. His success/failure @ UT will depend greatly on who he retains/recruits as coaching assistants. NOBODY does that job in a vacuum.
 
1sahorn said:
Regardless of who recruited them, 1 thing that appeared to be obvious to me from the Rice game on...this team LOVES RT. He is right in saying Chris didn't put this team together by himself. Also, it doesn't sound to me that he's overstating his (RT"s) involvement in recruiting this team (he credits himself with 3 recruits). The love this team showed for RT speaks volumes to me about him as a coach & a person. Hope I'm right. Time will tell. His success/failure @ UT will depend greatly on who he retains/recruits as coaching assistants. NOBODY does that job in a vacuum.
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As I said a few days ago, my level of optimism/pessimism regarding the future direction of the program hinges primarily on how well we retain current staff. The more assistants who leave, the more pessimistic I will be.
 
It is very clear from history that interim coaches who take over permanently in these situations do not tend to succeed. That said, most thought Texas would not make the Elite 8 following Beard's firing.
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True - I didn't "expect" it and I'm not sure most others did either, but had we fallen apart after Beard's arrest / firing, I don't think anybody would have been "surprised" by that either. At the very least, he gets credit for keeping the locker room together and keeping the team focused.

It's hard to project how that will translate to our performance over the next few years. It's normal for a few players to transfer after a coach leaves (for whatever reason). If he can avoid that happening, we'll be on the right track with a solid first couple of steps.
 
LonghornCatholic said:
RT has a message for you…
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So, this is kind of what got him in trouble at Fresno. First it was SDSU that they couldn't keep up with, then it was Nevada. Every offseason, RT would face questions about what the Bulldogs needed to do to take the next step and he'd retort with stuff like "I got us to 20 wins all these years, so trust me." They didn't, so he left.
 
I think it's unfortunate that Terry bragged a bit about being the point man on some of the recruits in the past. It's not looking like that at all now. As someone said, he was recruiting for Beard, not himself. He should have kept his mouth shut.
 
The most likely scenario is one good season next year then the wheels fall off. How many of the staff will leave for other jobs (going to Ole Miss or otherwise)? How many players will transfer (going to Ole Miss or otherwise)? Can Terry build and sustain his own program?
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Terry needs to figure out a new recruiting strategy ASAP. I thought he would have enough coming back year one to have a decent season and go from there. So far that is not looking to be the case (although the fall roster is not yet final).

It is very clear from history that interim coaches who take over permanently in these situations do not tend to succeed.
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Unfortunately, this is playing out like it usually does for interim coaches. Luke Fickell was a great assistant and has been a great football head coach at Cincinnati, but his one year at Ohio State in an interim HC role did not go well.

As stated above, it appears relying on players coming back or previously committed is not going to work. This is Terry's program and he has to figure out how to recruit players from high school and/or the portal now, or I am not sure he makes it past year 3.

As stated before, no one is arguing that Terry did not "earn it", but the history on how promoting interim coaches goes is clear except in rare exceptions. Terry has time, but he is going to have to adopt a new strategy ASAP... because if he cannot put a team together for this fall, the wheels may already be falling off.. which would totally suck if we're back to where we were before the Beard blip.
 
old65horn said:
On the court yes. He built this team from nothing in 2 years. That’s a high bar. He’ll do the same at OL Miss I’ll bet.
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From nothing? The team won the conference tournament with Smart the year before. Their performance against ACU in Indianapolis made that trigger easy to pull, but I wouldn't say "nothing" consisted of 4 future NBA players alongside Jones, Coleman, Ramey, Cunningham, etc.

What RT is going to have to work with in 2023-24 is nothing. Building it for 2025 and beyond is... nice? But we're in for a world of hurt this year. The worst part is a bunch of preseason polls will have us at like #23 because of Disu (or something like that) and we'll be lucky to get 12 wins out of whatever squad he puts together.
 
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