Rodney Terry shares goals for Texas entering Christmas break

Texas only has two games on the schedule over a three-week stretch to end this month and through the turn of the calendar for next year. That gives the Longhorns a lot of time to work on things to end their non-conference slate.

Following their win last weekend, Rodney Terry noted the things that he wanted to see his team develop at over the holidays. Overall, Terry said that he’s looking for all-around better play with what they’re doing on both sides of the floor.

“Yeah, I’ll tell you,” said Terry. “The thing that we want to continue to get better with our pace on offense, pace of play in terms of meaningful cuts, sharing the ball, not letting the ball stick. You know, playing inside out. Valuing, taking care of the basketball, which I think we did a pretty good job of all year to this point right now.

“Then sitting down, playing Texas Basketball defensively. You know, we try to protect the paint, we try to keep the guys off the glass, physical blockouts. Then try to get out and play to a strength of ours, which I think we’re a fast team but you’ve got to be able to get stops to be able to do that and play in transition.”

That was after their largest margin of victory of the year in a 121-57 outcome against Arkansas Pine-Bluff. Now, since then, they’ve had one of those remaining games on against New Orleans in a 98-62 victory on Thursday.

In that one, Texas did a lot of what Terry was wanting. They kept their pace in an offense that rates among the better ones in the country with their third highest-scoring night of the season so far. That performance included an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2.5-1, 32 points in the paint, and a career-high of 42 points from Jordan Pope (15-21 FG, 8-12 3PT). On defense, the Longhorns allowed 26 points in the paint but did give up 14 offensive rebounds. However, with 35 defensive boards on their own, they were able to get in transition and win the fast break differential at 21-6.

Texas will have one more game this year against Northwestern State next weekend to further improve in these areas. From there, their first season in the Southeastern Conference will start with few breaks in between over those next two and half months.