Rodney Terry downplays week-long layoff between games

In Saturday’s contest against the Houston Cougars, the Texas Longhorns were off their game, to put it lightly. Texas was beaten soundly by Houston 82-61.

The Longhorns were coming from a beat-down victory over West Virginia at home 94-58. However, that victory happened a week ago. And that led some to speculate, in the postgame press conference, whether or not the week-long layoff impacted Texas on the road against Houston.

“Yeah, no, I’m not gonna say the week-long layoff had an effect. I mean, we were playing pretty good when we took off from our last ball game the other night,” said Terry. “Last Saturday was a good ball game for us. Several of our later games have been really good for us as well. But you still gotta come back in and lace them up and go. They were off, too; they didn’t play during the week as well. We knew that coming here, they were going to be excited about competing at a high level. We were going to have to come in and match that.”

If there was any significant effect from the week-long layoff, it was not noticeable in the opening ten minutes of the game. Texas kept the game close to the start, but a two-point jumper by Jamal Snead helped propel Houston on an 11-0 run when the Longhorns were trailing 22-20. From that point on, it was all downhill for Terry and the Longhorns as the lead ballooned to 13 at the half, with Texas trailing 40-27.

Terry talks Texas’ struggles to stop LJ Cryer

The Longhorns struggled with their defense on the night, giving up 40 and 42 points, respectively, in each half. And in terms of individual performances, Houston guard L.J. Cryer put together a performance that Texas fans surely want to forget.

Cryer was the game’s leading scorer with 26 points in the Cougars’ 82-61 victory. After the game, in the postgame press conference, Texas head coach Rodney Terry explained how difficult it was for his players to keep the Houston guard contained.

“Yeah, he’s one of those guys that we know, obviously, being in this league for a number of years with him, that’s going to shoot the ball extremely well, especially at home,” said Terry. “You can’t give him any open looks.”

“He’s a guy that’s a shotmaker. They need his threes. And with second-chance points on the kickout, you can’t give those up. He played well today; he shot the ball extremely well. And when he’s playing at that level and making baskets for them, then they are extremely difficult to deal with.”

Cryer did most of his damage from the field, connecting on nine of his thirteen shot attempts, and was a smoking hot 6-9 from beyond the ark. Outside of Cryer, Texas did an admirable job limiting the Houston players from range as the rest of the team finished 2-14 from three.