Rodney Terry opens up on how difficult beating Houston is

Texas men’s hoops ran into a buzzsaw on Saturday in the form of Houston’s defense, which put a muzzle on the Longhorn offense en route to a Cougars victory.

The final tally was 82-61 in favor of UH and Kelvin Sampson’s team won they way they like to: by coming out and being the aggressors. Houston was terrific on the glass, grabbing 11 more rebounds than Texas as well as 17 offensive boards, accounting for more than 40% of their own misses. They also got to the free throw line an extra 10 times compared to Texas, blocked seven total shots, and converted 21-39 from inside the arc vs. 16-39 by the Longhorns.

All of those advantages ultimately, led to the lopsided final score. And after the game, Rodney Terry was asked about the advantage in physicality towards Houston and how tough it is to match up with them.

“Yeah, you got to go do it. I mean, absolutely. I mean, you got to be built for it, you know, too, as well,” the Texas coach answered, explaining that whether it’s playing vs. the Big 12 or SEC down the road, the Longhorns have to have some size and athleticism to match up with the competition.

“We’re going to still play in this league with these guys and we have to we have to build to have that physicality, you know what I mean, and things of that nature there. We still will. We’re going to the SEC, it’s going to be a physical league, too.”

Texas has some physical guys in the front-court that allow them to be competitive in the Big 12, but maintaining and improving the level of physicality and athletic ability across the roster is a goal for Rodney Terry going forward.

“So you have to address some of that in recruiting and how you build your roster, you know, in terms of how you how you deal with those those type of teams.”

While Texas has some older and more versatile guys down low, the team as a whole lacks the benchmarks of a truly physical team. They haven’t been great at getting to the free throw line all year and don’t crash the glass at nearly the rate they had in the previous couple of seasons.

The Longhorns have put together some strong offensive performances lately, but they just seem to lack that physical edge that was a calling card of Chris Beard’s teams in the Big 12.