Rodney Terry explains how Texas found unity with multiple transfers

Texas came up just short of the Final Four with a loss to Miami, but Rodney Terry saw his team come together all season long.

Terry’s future with the program is clear after being named the permanent head coach. He did one heck of a job considering the circumstances. Texas won the Big 12 and came within one win of a regional title in the NCAA Tournament.

Terry explained, despite a mesh of transfers, how Texas found unity the whole year.

“I’ve got to think it happens — we had seven guys return this year,” Terry said. “They gave us a little bit of continuity. “Last year we had an influx of guys — the one thing we were fighting last year is we were building a culture and we were trying to build a team last year and we were behind on time. We were going against teams a lot of times that had been together a number of years. So we were always saying, man, we’re fighting time.

“Now we got our seven guys back, we had that experience of those guys being together. Now we needed to blend the new guys, the younger guys in with our older guys. I thought again this year we’ve been able to defend that culture. I thought we’ve been able to spend a lot of time this summer with different activities.”

Rodney Terry preaches Texas team unity

It takes a great coach to bring a lot of talent together but also find what works. Terry deflected praise towards the players instead.

“A lot of it was player driven, not coach driven,” Terry said. “The best teams that have a high level of success, they’re player driven, not coach driven. We didn’t really have to force feed these guys to spend time with each other off the court and do different activities off the court. They did it willingly on themselves.

“They formed a bond this summer and had incredible chemistry that carried over into the fall, off the court right over to on the court. It’s really helped us this year have a great year and doing what we’re doing right now at this moment.”

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Terry led Texas to a 22-8 regular season record, good for second place in the Big 12 regular season standings, a conference tournament title and the program’s first trip to the Elite Eight since the 2008 campaign.