Texas basketball: Should Rodney Terry be fired? Report says it's likely after Xavier loss

DAYTON, Ohio — Texas basketball’s 2024-25 campaign may be over, but what seems like a pivotal offseason for the program is just beginning.

And it starts with an unavoidable question that Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte must immediately answer.

Should head coach Rodney Terry be fired? Speculation rose Thursday with multiple media members reporting that Terry likely coached his last game after a loss in the First Four to Xavier. Longtime college basketball reporter Jeff Goodman reported Texas is "likely to make a move" after the loss.

But such speculation doesn't concern Terry, who has never hidden his Christian faith.

"I live by blind faith," Terry said this week. "I have so much faith in a higher being and so much trust in Him. At the end of the day, you control what you can control, and you live where your feet are. You don't worry, you don't have anxiety. You give all that to the Lord, and the Lord will never leave you. He's always going to be in your corner, no matter what. In your highs of highs and in your lows of lows, he's always with you."

When he took over for the program on an interim basis following the suspension and then firing of Chris Beard in January 2023, Terry led the Longhorns to a 22-8 record, a Big 12 tournament championship and a spot in the Elite Eight, the longest such NCAA run for Texas since 2006. He was hired as the permanent head coach after the 2022-23 season on a five-year, $15.3 million contract with a buyout of $7.2 million in March 2023. That buyout is now approximately $5.4 million, a price that falls at the feet of Del Conte and the Texas basketball boosters.

Last season, Texas went 21-13 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. This year? Texas compiled a 19-15 record and reached a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament bubble after winning two of three games at the SEC Tournament in Nashville before faling to Xavier in a First Four matchup in Dayton.

But does that résumé mean Terry, 56, should keep his job? Let’s take a look at the pros and cons of firing the third-year coach.

Texas head coach Rodney Terry yells out instructions to his team during the Longhorns' win over Vanderbilt in the first-round of the SEC Tournament Wednesday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. Terry entered the SEC Tournament on a hot season after just a 17-14 regular season, but he strengthened his ase to keep his job by winning two games at the tournament.

Why Texas should keep Rodney Terry

He’s proven that he can win in the postseason. Texas has won four NCAA Tournament games over the past two seasons, which equals the number of tournament wins for Texas in the 10 previous seasons. He also led Texas to the 2023 Big 12 Tournament title, which was just the second such championship for the Longhorns in 28 Big 12 seasons. “Tourney” Terry, as he’s called by some online wags, also had the Longhorns peaking in this postseason with Quad One wins over Vanderbilt and Texas A&M at the SEC Tournament. before falling to Xavier.
He coached this season in arguably the toughest conference in the sport’s history. In the nonconference portion of the schedule, the SEC had a winning percentage of .889, the first time any league had topped .882 in 20 years. The SEC was 30-4 against the ACC, 14-2 against the Big 12 and 10-9 against the Big Ten. “It’s the best basketball conference, top to bottom, relative to the field, that we have ever seen,” ESPN analyst Jay Bilas said in February.
He has unquestioned loyalty to the Texas program. Terry has spent 13 seasons at Texas as an assistant or head coach, and his time in Austin reaches almost two decades counting his college days at St. Edward’s University and as a young coach at Bowie High School. His direct lineage to the glory days of the 2000s remains evident with regular visits from Kevin Durant, TJ Ford and other former Longhorns. Forner Texas star Tristan Thompson, who plays for the Cleveland Cavaliers, even made a quick trip down to Nashville to watch his alma mater.

Why Texas should fire Rodney Terry

He seems to be steering a program on a downward trend. After he took over for the program on an interim basis following the firing of Beard, Terry led the Longhorns to a 22-8 record and a spot in the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight, the longest such run for Texas since the 2005-06 season. Last season, Texas went 21-13 and reached the second round of the NCAA Tournament. This year, the Longhorns went 17-14 in the regular season, including a 6-12 record in the SEC.
He has mismanaged the roster for two consecutive seasons. The Elite Eight team from two years ago was constructed by Beard, and Terry and Texas general manager Chris Ogden have failed to put together the right pieces in the past two offseasons. Last year’s team was stymied defensively by a small starting backcourt that featured two 6-footers in Tyrese Hunter and Max Abmas. This year’s roster doesn’t have enough size to compete consistently up front against the array of big bodies in the SEC, even if it has held up in the postseason with everyone heathy.
He has fallen off in recruiting. From 2016-22, Texas signed six McDonald’s All-Americans and had three top-10 recruiting classes. The past three recruiting cycles finalized by Terry have fallen short of that standard with the exception of Tre Johnson, the 5-star freshman and the SEC’s player of the year whose father played for Terry at Baylor in the 1990s. The 2023 class ranked 43rd in 247Sports’ composite rankings, the 2024 class ranked 17th even with Johnson, and the 2025 class ranks 75th and has just one pledge in 4-star forward John Clark from Houston.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Rodney Terry may be fired by Texas after First Four loss, per report

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