Rodney Terry praises Dick Vitale's impact on college basketball

Rodney Terry is doing a superb job as the Texas interim basketball coach after head coach Chris Beard was let go following a messy legal matter. Since taking over, Terry has keep the ship humming down in Austin. The Longhorns are ranked in the top-10 and are eyeing a first or second place finish in the Big 1, depending on how their game against reigning champs Kansas goes later this week.

Given the circumstances, Terry arguably deserves Coach Of The Year consideration. Longtime college hoops analyst Dick Vitale agrees. Vitale actually called the Longhorns’ road game over the weekend at Baylor, where the Bears triumphed over Texas, but Vitale still left believing Coach Terry should earn the job permanently. He even made a video with Terry ahead of the Baylor game, congratulating the interim coach on his job since taking over. Vitale finished the video off by casting his vote for Rodney Terry to be the next head coach at Texas. You can watch that here:

Had chat with ⁦@RodneyTerry⁩ ⁦@TexasMBB⁩ / has earned the right to have the interim removed as he has done a terrific job in the toughest conference ⁦@Big12Conference⁩ pic.twitter.com/6VuzBXFItJ

— Dick Vitale (@DickieV) February 25, 2023

In the wake of such a nice gesture by one of college basketball’s elder statesmen, Terry discussed Dick Vitale’s impact on the game and considers his encounters with the broadcasting legend to be a “privilege.” You can read Coach Terry’s comments on Dicky V right here:

“Mr. Vitale, a guy we have a tremendous amount of respect for and what he’s done for the the game of college basketball. And he’s been great to me this year. I’ve known him before in the past. When I was here before with Rick Barnes he’d come into the the locker room and I’ll be there with Rick and stuff and he and Rick would have some good conversation and I was privileged enough to be in those conversations as well.

“So again, we had him at Tennessee, I think, was the first time we had him this year. And then we had him in the other day’s game and I think we’ll have him one more time in our Kansas game. But you talk about a guy who’s really been the voice of college basketball and, you know, when you play on Big Monday night or even in big Saturday games, when Dick Vitale is on your game, you know it’s a big game.”

Last Saturday was certainly that, and this Wednesday and this Saturday are as well for Texas as they take on TCU on the road during the week before returning home to host Kansas in the regular season finale in front of Dick Vitale.