Rodney Terry pleased with limited turnovers by Texas in loss to Texas Tech

Texas fell to in-state conference opponent Texas Tech on Monday night losing to the Red Raiders 74-67. Interim head coach Rodney Terry now drops to a 13-5 record since taking over the head coaching duties and has wanted to make a point of emphasis on the team’s turnovers lately. The Longhorns may have left Lubbock with a loss, but Terry explained after the game that ball security was not the reason why.

“We did a great job of taking care of the ball tonight, it wasn’t so much turning the ball over tonight, we did a great job of taking care of the basketball,” Terry said. “I think tonight the first half I thought we just didn’t have great one-on-one defense, our pick-and-roll defense wasn’t where it needed to be in the first half.”

Defense was definitely an issue all night for Texas, as they started off the game allowing a 7-0 run that was hard to recover from. The Red Raiders shot the ball lights out, ending the contest making 46.6% of their shots from the field and 50% from the three-point line.

The Longhorns did win the turnover battle handily with just six turnovers on the night, which was the same exact number of turnovers they had in their previous contest versus West Virginia. In Texas’ last six games, they have either won or tied their opponent in the turnover battle in all but one, now boasting a Big 12-best 11.8 turnovers per game.

There’s no doubt that the Longhorns have been taking better care of the basketball, but Terry believes there are other areas of their game that can be improved on.

“I thought in the second half we made a couple adjustments there in the second half I thought that really helped us really turn the game, especially the later part of the second half and put ourselves in position to have a chance to win this game,” Terry said.

The Longhorns were down by as many as 13 points in the second half and rallied tie the game up at 64-64 with 4:16 minutes remaining. But unfortunately, they were not able to pull off one of their signature comebacks like they’d done on numerous other occasions this season.

Texas Tech’s win marks their second straight against a ranked conference opponent and bumped Texas out of the driver’s seat at the top of the Big 12 conference standings, as they now sit behind Kansas. With five games remaining in the season, the Longhorns face Oklahoma in their next matchup, followed by a gauntlet of four straight ranked conference foes.