Terry preaches resilience
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Win or lose, you get 24 hours to sit with it. That’s what Texas interim coach Rodney Terry tells his guys after every game.
Take the day, reflect, digest, excavate what you must from those 40 (occasionally 45) minutes and move onto the next. Because life in the Big 12 — especially in the Big 12 — affords no time to cling to any one result, good or bad, with another beast always lurking right around the corner.
“You have to have a short memory in this Big 12,” Terry said. “We don’t have any team that’s not any good. And we’re gonna get someone’s best game every night. So whether you win or whether you lose, you have to come back the next day with an incredible approach. Our league is built on that.”
From Terry’s perspective, his team has done a pretty good job of adopting that mindset.
Texas lost back-toback games just once all year, coming up short against No. 9 Baylor and No. 22 TCU on the road. It followed that twogame skid by smoking regular-season champion Kansas in a 16-point home win last Saturday to finish second in a conference that could send 80 percent of its teams to the Big Dance.
That clear-minded approach could help No. 2 seed Texas (23-8, 12-6 Big 12) this week as it tries to win its second Big 12 tournament championship in three years. Even with favorable seeding and a first-round bye, winning three games in three days is going to require a stupendous amount of focus and fight.
The Longhorns will face either No. 7 Oklahoma State (17-14, 8-10) or No. 10 Oklahoma (15-16, 513) in Thursday’s quarterfinals at the T-Mobile Center. Texas is 4-0 against the Sooners and Cowboys this year.
“I asked our guys to a man the other day, ‘Has there been one easy game in our league this year?’ Terry said. “Everybody said no. And those are two well-coached teams. We have a lot of respect for both opponents.”
Texas probably has won enough meaningful games to feel safely locked into one of the top eight seeds in the upcoming NCAA Tournament. It was the fifth overall seed in the selection committee’s Feb. 16 bracket reveal and completed the regular season tied for second with Baylor with 11 NET Quadrant I wins, trailing only Kansas’ 15. ESPN bracket prognosticator Joe Lunardi has projected Texas as a No. 2 seed for about two months straight.
Still, the Longhorns don’t plan on taking it easy in Kansas City. Senior forward Timmy Allen said he wants to snip as many nets as possible, and his fellow long-inthe-tooth teammates feel the same.
And who knows, depending on what happens around the nation over the new few days adding a Big 12 tournament title to the resume could propel Texas to its first No. 1 seed since 2003. That was also the only year Texas advanced to the Final Four since the field expanded to 64 tames in 1985.
“I’m really proud of this group,” Terry said of Texas’ six upperclassmen. “You know, I can’t say it enough to those guys. Just the way they carried themselves on the court, off the court. They’ve stayed the course. We’ve probably been the most challenged team all year from an adversity standpoint. And these guys never stopped working. Their work ethic has been off the chart. And just extremely proud of the way they’ve helped the young guys.”