Rodney Terry details aspects of Houston Christian game that stood out to him

Texas bounced back from their loss to Marquette in the Big East-Big 12 Battle with a 77-50 win over Houston Christian at home on Saturday.

It’s no secret that Houston Christian is not necessarily the strongest opponent on the Longhorns’ schedule this season hailing from the Southland Conference. But that doesn’t mean there weren’t areas to improve upon and details to to refine for Texas with conference play now less than a month away.

Following the game, Texas head coach Rodney Terry was asked about the specific details that he liked or possibly didn’t like from his team, providing an in-depth and high-level look at the Longhorns’ performance.

“Our white line defense, which is our help side defense,” Terry said. “We’re really stressing and placing emphasis on that right now and being able to go from help side defense back out to closing out to shooter or closing out to a driver. Those are areas early in our journey right now that we have to continue to get better.

“We can’t close out and have a guy get to the teeth of our defense, we can’t close out with a hand down and have a guy tee up a three on us.”

The Longhorns held the Huskies to just 50 points on Saturday, representing the lowest point total of the season for any opponent they’ve faced. They held Houston Christian to a 30.3% field goal percentage and forced 16 turnovers, but Terry still believes there are still areas to improve upon defensively.

“I’m looking at our tags and our pick and roll coverage, our high tag, our low tag. We’re on the white line, which is our help side defense, we’re not giving up easy baskets with rolls to the basket,” Terry explained. “So I’m really watching that and along with no blow-bys up top, our guys got to stay in front of the basketball, not let teams get into the teeth of our defense.”

Texas has been stellar even when they have let opponents get into the teeth of their defense, averaging 5.6 blocks per game which currently ranks top 20 in the nation. Regardless, perfecting the small details on the defensive side of the ball could take the Longhorns a long way, especially if their offense gets back to the elite level of play they displayed last season.

The Longhorns take on LSU in Houston for their next game this Saturday at noon ET in a matchup that will be airing on ESPN2.