Rodney Terry assesses Texas' first half performance vs. Louisville

Texas has found themselves in a close one in New York, as the Longhorns lead Louisville 41-38 at halftime of their Saatva Empire Classic matchup.

The Longhorns impressed in a back-and-forth first half battle that featured seven lead changes, and at halftime, head coach Rodney Terry spoke about what stood out to him in his team’s first road game of he season at Madison Square Garden.

“You know what, I thought Kadin [Shedrick] did a great job of altering some shots, blocking a few shots,” Terry said. “Gave us a great inside presence there. We gotta do a better job of trying to put some consecutive stops together.”

The Virginia transfer made his presence felt on both ends of the floor in the first half, collecting three steals and two blocks to go along with his 10 points. Oral Roberts transfer Max Abmas had 10 points of his own in the first half as well with the duo leading the Longhorns scoring.

“I thought he [Abmas] was really aggressive shooting the basketball, last play there getting him downhill, I thought that was really good as well,” Terry said.

Texas got off to a hot shooting start, making 57.6% of their shots from the field with 10 fastbreak points and 10 points off of turnovers. But the Cardinals have been able to keep things close throughout with some effective offense of their own.

Louisville and Texas will finish out the rest of their matchup on ESPN, with the winner facing the defending national champion UConn Huskies on Monday after they defeated Indiana 77-57 in their Saatva Empire Classic game earlier on Sunday afternoon.

Texas takes Broadway

The main focus of Texas’ trip to New York in the Saatva Empire Classic is to take care of business on the court. But off the court, Terry is still making sure that his players are getting themselves immersed in the culture of the Big Apple, and what better way than going to see a Broadway show?

“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.”