Across the board, Texas yearns for NCAA tournament success

What does it take to win in the NCAA tournament? Ask Longhorn forward Christian Bishop, and he’ll say it takes valuing every single possession. Ask Texas guard Avery Benson, and he’ll say it takes the best possible game a team can play. Benson’s sentiment was echoed by Texas head coach Chris Beard on Monday, saying his 20-11, six-seed Longhorns need to play an “A-Zone” game to advance past 11-seed Virginia Tech.

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Beard, his assistants, Bishop, and Benson are the only current Longhorns to have NCAA tournament victories on their resumes. Every other player on the roster, from transfers Timmy Allen and Marcus Carr, to Texas seniors Andrew Jones and Courtney Ramey, have yet to win a game during March Madness.

Come Friday, those players will not only seek to add their first victory in the NCAA tournament, but the program’s first victory in the postseason since 2014.

Beard, who begins his first tournament at Texas after accumulating a 9-3 record in the postseason at Texas Tech and Little Rock, wasn’t sure whether the inexperience would lead to a hunger on his team or something else he hadn’t accounted for.

“There’s some experience in the program, but there’s also some inexperience in key spots playing in the tournament,” Beard said. “What that means? I don’t know. It can go both ways. Maybe that’s the hunger these guys need, they’ve been waiting to play on this stage.”

The returners, Jones, Ramey, Jase Febres, and Brock Cunningham, all have at least a game of experience in college basketball’s postseason. But that experience doesn’t bring back positive memories. Febres was on the roster when the Longhorns lost to Nevada in overtime in 2018, ending an emotional season that included Jones’ battle with cancer.

All four were contributors last season when 14-seed Abilene Christian shocked the Longhorns in Shaka Smart’s final game as Texas head coach, a humiliating result that ultimately led to Beard’s return to his alma mater.

Those four players don’t want that game — that loss — to be their legacy.

“Been waiting the whole year for it,” Febres said Monday. “After coming up short like we did last year, it’s been eating away at some of the guys. We’re definitely happy to get back in it.”

That ACU game was Jones’ only taste of tournament action after his leukemia diagnosis kept him from participating in the 2018 first-round loss. His redshirt/recovery year was the season Texas won the second NIT championship in school history. He, like hundreds of others, lost potential NCAA tournament chances when the event was canceled in 2020.

Jones wants to create better postseason memories in what could be his final opportunity at Texas.

“We don’t want our legacy to be we barely made the tournament… then we go and don’t actually achieve our goals,” Jones said Monday. “I think we’re more hungry than ever to really taste what it feels like to win in the tournament.”

Those returners have a lot in common with several of the players that transferred to Texas. Carr, Allen, and Dylan Disu have not even appeared in a tournament game. For Carr, this season in Austin provides his first postseason opportunity at what is his third school.

“Very excited,” Carr said. “It’ something you dream about since you were a kid, and now it’s finally happening. It’s kind of surreal and just want to seize the opportunity.”

Throughout the fall in press conferences which introduced individual members of the roster, Beard mentioned his initial conversations with players didn’t center around playing time, or opportunity, or development. They focused on winning, specifically games in March.

Carr’s initial conversation was no different, and now the focus which seemed many months away is now on the doorstep.

“Winning has always been the ultimate goal for everybody who has come together on this team,” Carr said. “Now it is March, and now it’s time to really take heed that this is the most important month to be winning in.”

All those players came to Texas for the opportunity to be on the stage they’re now on. The same goes for the coach. Beard, who is no stranger to tournament success, wants to add tournament wins at a third school to his resume.

“Coach Beard, obviously, is one of the guys that seems to always be in situations to win championships,” Benson said.

The tournament is one of those situations, but Texas doesn’t enter as a favorite to win it. The Longhorns’ matchup with the Hokies is seen as a close contest between two power conference teams, the better-seeded Longhorns coming off a disappointing conference tournament and underdog Virginia Tech off a conference tournament title.

Beard was thankful for the opportunity considering there are schools around the state and country who weren’t included in the field of 68.

That said, he understood all but one member of his regular rotation at this juncture in the season has yet to play a second game in the NCAA tournament.

“Our lack of experience playing in the tournament? I don’t know,” Beard said. “Could that be a positive? These guys, this is what they’ve been waiting for their whole careers. Or could that be a little bit of a disadvantage if guys don’t go about it the right way? We’ve got to address that.”

Between the hunger from both transfers and returners, there’s an overarching hunger from everyone wearing burnt orange for postseason success. Texas, as mentioned, hasn’t won a tournament game since Cameron Ridley’s last second tip-in helped Texas past Arizona State the first round in 2014.

Eight years without success is a long time for a program that had five Sweet 16 appearances between 2000 and 2008, and at least one win in the 2009, 2011, and 2014 tournaments.

Beard, a Texas alum himself, is cognizant of that hunger from all those involved with Longhorn basketball.

“Things that are important to the fans and fan base, they’re important to us too. Texas needs to be in the NCAA tournament every year. Texas needs to be competing for regular season championships. Texas needs to have seeds where we can play in front of our fans on a regular basis in this tournament. You can’t always quite get that done, but you work towards that. That’s an important thing. We need to win games in this tournament.

“I think the most important thing is, can these guys make a run in March? We know we can play with anybody in the country. We’ve played with one-seeds, two-seeds, three-seeds, but the talk is over now.”

Beard said Monday the “whole deal” is to play your best ball when it matters most.

It’s mid-March. It’s the NCAA tournament. Right now, the games matter most.

Said Benson, one of the few people currently wearing burnt orange who knows the feeling of winning in that timeframe: “We’re not going to win every game and we didn’t win the regular season or the Big 12 tournament, but now it’s survive or go home.”