Rodney Terry gives excitement for Texas players to experience New York City

After hosting and winning their first three games of the season, the Texas Longhorns will be taking their talents to The Big Apple as one of four teams participating in the Saatva Empire Classic.

Texas will square off with Louisville in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, with the winner facing whoever wins between UConn and Indiana the following day for the tournament title. And following the team’s most recent win over Rice, Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry spoke about the excitement surrounding the opportunity.

“When I was here with Rick Barnes we got a chance to go to New York every year,” Terry said. “It gives obviously each coach, writers the chance to see us in person and get a chance to play on a major stage and play at the Mecca in Madison Square Garden.”

Terry was an assistant under Barnes for 10 of his 17 seasons at the helm for Texas before eventually taking over as the Longhorns head coach this offseason. Last year on an interim basis, Terry led the Longhorns to a 22-8 record, a Big 12 Tournament title, and their first Elite Eight appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 2008. And this season it’s clear that he wants to double down on the team’s identity from last year.

“But again, I want to see our guys have our defense travel with us,” Terry said. “We’re working really hard on trying to establish an identity in November here that we’re gonna guard hard every night. It may not be perfect, but we’re playing extremely hard on that end of the floor. Hopefully again we’ll have that travel with us to New York and that same type of identity early.”

Setting the tone early in the season will definitely be crucial for the Longhorns as they look to maintain and build on their success from last season. But Terry also values the importance of his players taking in New York’s culture during their travels this weekend well.

“I think it’s important too as you get a chance go across the country, we’ve got a number of different guys, we have 11 guys out of 16 guys that are from Texas. So we get a chance to go to the East Coast, and in New York in particular, you get a chance to take in a different type of culture in our country,” Terry explaied. “We’ll take our guys and give them a chance to be exposed a little bit to Broadway, we’ll go and see a play.”

The New York Jets found a newfound passion for Broadway shows while being featured on HBO’s ‘Hard Knocks’ this year, and maybe the Longhorns will be the next team in line, with Coach Terry taking them to see one of his favorite shows this weekend as a part of their travel plans.

“Many times guys will never have that opportunity to be able to do that and kind of expose them to that. We’ll go see a really good Michael Jackson play, it’s really good. We saw it a couple years ago and they’re still playing it on Broadway right now and I think our guys will really like it, it’ll be really good. I’m looking forward to seeing it for a second time,” Terry admitted.

Hopefully, the Longhorns enjoy themselves and remember the time they have in New York, as they’ll take Louisville this Sunday at 3:30 p.m. ET in a game airing on ESPN.