Everything Rodney Terry said ahead of the NCAA Tournament

Texas head coach Rodney Terry was available to the media in Dayton, Ohio ahead of the Longhorns’ First Four matchup with Xavier in the NCAA Tournament. Here’s everything he had to say.

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RODNEY TERRY: Well, we’re super excited about being here, being in this tournament. You never take it for granted, the opportunity of being here. I’d like to thank the Dayton staff that does a great job here and has done it for over 20 years, plus years here, in the NCAA Tournament. The welcome that you guys gave us the other day and what you’ve been able to do in terms of the environment that you have here in March, it’s second to none.

I talked to our guys about this venue and how great of fans you have here in Dayton. I was a young coach at UNC Wilmington, and we got a chance to play an NIT game here, and man, what great basketball fans here. Great venue, just a great setting.

I know, again, there’s a big rivalry between Dayton and Xavier, and we’d like to think that hopefully Dayton, you come over to our side and give us a little bit of home-court cooking a little bit as opposed to being on the road.

But one of the best venues in all of college basketball here in Dayton. We’re excited about being here and competing against a really, really good Xavier well-coached team.

Q. One of the things you’ve preached over the past month, two months, is every game being an NCAA Tournament game. Just curious, with you guys having that mentality over the last stretch, how does that prepare you for now being an NCAA Tournament game?

RODNEY TERRY: Well, I think if you’re playing basketball in March or mid-February and even for us in the SEC it was pretty much throughout January that you were playing NCAA Tournament and March basketball. Every possession really matters. The urgency that you have to play with really matters. Rebounding, having a defensive presence really matters. It really decides the outcome of games.

It will be no different tomorrow. Xavier may be the fastest team we’ve played all season long. They put tremendous pressure on your transition first down defense. You’ve got to get back. If you don’t, they’re shooting a lay-up or they’re scoring a three. Sean (Miller) has done a great job with this group in terms of the pace that they play with. It’s really, really fast and puts a lot of pressure on you to get back and set your defense.

(Zach) Freemantle is a really good player inside, and he makes everything go, as well. This is just a terrific basketball team that we’re competing against tomorrow, and we know we’re going to have to have a lot of urgency defensively, and we’re going to have to do a great job of trying to rebound the basketball and get out and play fast ourselves.

Q. As far as the players are concerned, how much do you lean on guys like Kadin Shedrick, Tramon Mark, who have been in these types of games, to trickle down to the other teammates that are doing it for the first time?

RODNEY TERRY: Yeah, this time of year it’s really, again, about your players being excited about being in the moment. I said to our guys today we practiced earlier over at a junior college, and I said, guys, the teams that have success this time of year are teams that have tremendous juice and energy, and they’re excited about this opportunity.

Sometimes it’s not the best team that wins this time of year. For 40 minutes, you’ve got to be the team that comes in and puts your will on that team for 40 minutes in terms of how you’re going to play.

But really the non-negotiables are you’re coming in, incredible energy, activity. You don’t have to play perfect, but you’ve got to play hard and you’ve got to play selfless and you’ve got to play together.

Q. Rodney, when you put Tramon at the point in the SEC tournament, everything seemed to really click and flow, and obviously he’s bigger and can see over a lot of people. Did you dabble and think about doing that earlier, and what do you think has made the difference in the offense since then?

RODNEY TERRY: We did. He actually played a lot of possessions earlier in the season, some at point — not exclusively like we did there in the tournament. But there was a lot of thought process in terms of wanting to do that earlier. But for the sake of our rotation, we weren’t really allowing to do that.

I thought it was much more functional for us when we got Chendall Weaver back in our lineup because Chendall is really good at execution. He’s a great ball mover, and he’s a guy that already has a feel for what we’re doing and how we do it.

When you have another guy out there that can execute along with Kadin that knows what you’re trying to get done and now you’re putting the ball in Tramon’s hands, it makes things flow a lot easier for us. We were able to do that.

We were able to also slide Pope off the ball and give him scoring opportunities to shoot the basketball, as well, as opposed to just facilitating all the time, which was good for us, too.

Q. I was talking to Julian Larry and Jayson Kent about Ryan Conwell, and the vibe I got from them is they were all pretty close-knit at Indiana State. I’m curious to get your thoughts on how much do you glean from your guys who have played with each other, even as you put together your own form of scouting with your coaches?

RODNEY TERRY: Yeah, Conwell is one of those guys that can go for 40 on any given night. He shoots the basketball, he’s a green light shooter. He can shoot it at any time. He’s one of the hottest players coming into this tournament right now in terms of scoring the basketball. Puts a lot of pressure on you. He’s a dual threat.

He’s what we call a weight. He’s a guy that can shoot the ball from the perimeter and drive and score, as well. So he’s a dual-threat player. He’s one of those guys that you have to game plan for and spend a lot of time with trying to make sure that we understand, hey, we’ve got to do a great job by committee of trying to go at this guy.

You’re not going to shut him down. He’s a great scorer. But hopefully you do a good enough job that he doesn’t go off and have one of those crazy nights.

Q. Just curious, in a game like this, do you use advanced analytics, or is it just, hey, turn on the film, and we watch it that way?

RODNEY TERRY: Yeah, I mean, we trust the numbers all the time. Throughout the course of the season, we spent a lot of money on that, so it’s a resource that you definitely take notice to. We’re not going to sit here and say we don’t.

But at the end of the day, it also gets down to being able to play your principles defensively. There are guys that may be non-shooters that make shots in games that are a Division I player. Can’t just stand out there and let a guy just shoot a driveway shot, or sometimes we call it a HORSE shot. He’ll probably make one of those.

Again, you have to play the principles the right way, whether it’s a short close, whether it’s a guy that can shoot free throws or not shoot free throws. Whether it’s a guy that’s not a great finisher, play the percentages and not try to foul that guy, not put him on the line, make him make a tough two.

But we do. We do. Other staff collectively does a great job of really giving us all the intel, and now we have to get the intel to our guys to where they can apply it.

Q. Obviously Texas being one of 14 teams from the SEC in the March Madness tournament, can you speak a little bit to the gauntlet that is the SEC schedule and how that’s prepared you to succeed?

RODNEY TERRY: Well, again, I’d like to start with giving kudos to the leadership of the SEC and Commissioner Sankey and Garth (Glissman) and those guys. They’ve done a tremendous job building basketball year by year in the SEC. The last two years, the two previous years, eight teams got in. We left a league in the Big 12 the last two years where we were arguably the best conference in basketball the last two years, and we got eight teams in.

Again, this historic year that we had this past season with 14 teams in is off the charts. The things that our league did in non-conference play, if you looked at our wins versus the ACC in terms of the ACC Challenge that we have with those guys, it was unheard of.

So you knew as you prepared for conference play, it was going to be a monster year in terms of every night there were no nights off. You had to bring your A game. You had great coaches in this league. You had great venues in this league.

Again, I think coming from the Big 12 when we had the No. 1 conference in the country, I think it prepares you for NCAA Tournament play because every night you’re playing in an NCAA Tournament game.

You don’t play with the level of urgency that you have to play with, you’ll get beat, whether you’re at home or you’re on the road. Our teams are battle tested. Now we’ve got to go out and do it when it counts the most here in March.

Q. On that topic of just the conference, you feature the Freshman of the Year in the SEC. For you, have you been at all surprised at the success and the level of scoring that Tre has been able to do his first year in the college game?

RODNEY TERRY: We took Tre Johnson, he was the only freshman at media day at the SEC meetings, media day. We took him there for a reason. We expected him to be one of the best players in the league.

We expected him to be a guy that had a chance to face the media, be a guy that continued to grow in that area because those were the expectations of him coming in. He’s a top five player in his class in high school and at one point was the No. 1 player in his class coming in.

But just like any freshman, he was going to have to come in and be an everyday guy, be a consistent guy to where he grew each and every day. I thought he did a great job of coming in, really embracing himself and with his teammates, learned to trust his teammates over the course of conference play, and I think his level of play got better as the conference went along, as he was game planning from game to game. He let the game come to him when there were nights that teams were doubling him, he trusted his teammates to let them get some things done.

I think, again, you saw a guy grow every single game. It’s easy if you just go out there and say, hey, Tre, you shoot every ball. No, we don’t need Tre shooting every ball. We need Tre playing the way Tre Johnson has always played. Tre Johnson has always played the game to win. We watched him play a thousand games in high school. He makes the right play or the simple play in terms of if he’s a guy being double-teamed, he’s going to hit the open guy. He’s going to make the simple play.

I know there are a lot of times, how come you guys can’t get him more shots? He’s only got two or three shots in this game. Tre Johnson plays that way. He’s not a hog. He’s not a pig. He’s going to pass that ball. He’s going to move the ball. When it’s time for him to take over, it’s time for him to take shots, he’ll take shots. But he’s going to take what the defense is going to give him. He’s learned to do that over the course of the season.

He’s going to have to do that at the next level. He’s not going to be able to shoot every ball. He’s going to play with other great players. But I think that he’s learned to do that. I think his growth has been great from a maturity standpoint. We expected him to be Freshman of the Year in the league. We expected him to be one of the best players in the league. And he lived up to the billing.

Q. I wonder if you’ve kidded or razzed Sean Miller about the Arizona inbounds violation call. How painful is that, and has it stuck with you?

RODNEY TERRY: I don’t think I’ve ever really ribbed him about it. We helped him become an Elite 8 coach. They went on and went to the Elite 8 and had a chance to go to the Final Four.

And the point that Kirk is referencing is I think it was 2011, my last year at Texas, we played those guys in the Sweet 16 game, and we felt like we had the game won. And there was a five-second call, Dick Cartmell made the call. Dick was a great official, by the way. No knock against Dick.

But a five-second — I do remember that, though. I had it many times in the Mountain West later in my career coaching at Fresno State, and I reminded him every time that we should have been in the Sweet 16. Five-second call, and before we could get to the locker room, Coach Morris wanted that computer because he wanted to make sure that that was the right call. Nevertheless, they got the ball back, Derrick Williams scores an inbounds play, they win the ball game, they go to the Sweet 16. We gave them a — situation gave them a great gift that day.

But no, Sean is a great coach. He’s been a great coach for a number of years. He had some great teams at Arizona. I got a chance to coach against him a couple times at Arizona when I was in Fresno, and we got a chance to compete in the NCAA Tournament last. But his teams have always been very well-coached. They don’t beat themselves. They play really, really well and together offensively.

But yeah, that was a great moment in the tournament.

Q. You guys made it into the March Madness First Four, which is a huge accomplishment, but I would like to talk about your women’s team. You guys are No. 1 right now in the AP poll for women’s basketball. What do you have to say for that accomplishment?

RODNEY TERRY: You know, Vic Schaefer is one of the best coaches in all of women’s basketball. He has done an incredible job in terms of building the program at the University of Texas, first class in everything he does, both on the court, off the court. He had a terrific team last year. He had a team last year that was good enough to win the whole thing.

He had great continuity with a lot of players back from last year’s team. He had a couple more added to this year’s team, transfer portal, freshmen coming in, and they again, right now as the No. 1 seed, they have an opportunity to cut the nets down. They’re really good. Madison Booker, I mean, she could come and play with us. She’s that talented. She’s terrific. She’s a player.

But they’ve got other great teammates, and they’ve got a great team around a great player. When it’s winning time, she knows when to take over and get things done. She’s not only a really good player, but she’s a really good person. Much respect for what Coach Vic has done at the University of Texas, and we’re pulling for them to win the whole thing this year.

Q. With Tre, as a coach, is there a dichotomy between preparing him for the NBA, which inevitably he will reach, versus coaching him as a collegiate player?

RODNEY TERRY: Yeah, you know, I think, again, I’ve been blessed to coach a number of one-and-done players, and we knew when we signed Tre Johnson, Tre Johnson was a one-and-done talent.

I think the thing you try to do with those guys is you try to, one, have a great relationship to where you can coach them on the floor, to where they know when you’re coaching them, to even get out of their comfort level in terms of there’s another level that you can go to, and do you want me to coach you to be a freshman and have just a good freshman year, do you want me to coach you to be Freshman of the Year, do you want me to coach you to be one of the best players in the country.

There were moments throughout the course of the first part of our tenure coaching young Tre Johnson that he had to come to grips with that. I thought that he really embraced that and said, Hey, no, Coach, I want you to coach me to be one of the best players in the country. Is that demanding? Is that holding him accountable to another level other than just a freshman? Yes.

But I think he embraced that. I think his teammates embraced that in terms of how good we were pushing him to be this year, and I think he’s excelled at a high level.

Is there still room for growth in his development? Absolutely. All of our guys still have great room for growth. Kevin Durant had great room for growth, and he’s one of the best freshmen of all time. But again, I think he’s really matured in a number of different ways.

You can go back and look in game situations in conference play this year, we put the ball in his hands to win the game in several games with game-winning plays. Did he make those? No. But those were growing moments. As a young player, to put the ball in his hands, to say go win the game for us, that’s a growing moment for him.

All great players have failure, but they learn from failure to be better. But they want that ball in that moment. Can he do that a year from now? All day every day. We coach guys that way that had a hard time doing that when they were freshmen, sophomores, but when they were seniors in college, they’re scoring that basketball. They’re making that winning play. But you have to have that growth. That was some growth that we saw with Tre Johnson over the course of the season.

Arkansas game he should have been at the foul line to win the game, but we’re going to let that go, right? That’s a game winner, free throw. We’ll let that one go.

Q. Looking back at your season, overall, two questions. What’s the best quality of your basketball team, and two, what’s the most complete game or the best game that you’ve played on the year?

RODNEY TERRY: I think the thing that’s most liking of our team this season, I said it from the start of the year, team chemistry. These guys all — I have a group of guys that all like each other. They’ve made so many great memories this year that they’ll talk about the rest of their lives in terms of whether they’re ribbing each other on the bus, they’re ribbing each other after film session.

But these guys have spent a lot of time with each other, and it happened very organically. We didn’t force-feed it. But they really, really like spending time with each other, not just on the court but off the court.

Most complete game? I thought we played really well at Mississippi State. I thought that was a game where our guys from the start of the game to the finish of the game, they really executed the game plan in terms of how we wanted to play defensively. We could have done a few things better offensively to close the game out in terms of handling their pressure, but I thought it was probably one of our most complete games.

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I thought our game against Vanderbilt in the tournament was one of our most complete games of the year, as well. I’d probably say those two games. I know we played really well at LSU. But those two games stand out the most in me in terms of scouting report and then going out and executing and just playing the level of basketball that we thought we were capable of playing this season.