Texas made it official on Thursday, firing coach Chris Beard nearly a month after he was arrested on third-degree assault charges for allegedly strangling, biting and assaulting his fiancee at her home.
Rodney Terry is the interim coach of the Longhorns. He will end the season.
If you were to hinder this thing, you would have to make Terry the favorite to get the job full-time, especially since he inherited a great team from Beard and is likely to win big this year. In addition, Terry is very popular and well equipped to hold things together. In a perfect world, he’ll keep the job.
Still, Texas is one of the most coveted jobs in college basketball — arguably a top 10 job — which could prompt a statewide search. The following is a list of trainers that UT might consider.
Texas coaching candidates
Rodney Terry, Texas interim coach: Any reasonable list of candidates must start with Terry, for reasons already stated. Raised south of Houston, he was Rick Barnes’ staff in Texas from 2002-2011 before spending 10 years as a coach at Fresno State and UTEP. He’s familiar with his surroundings and what it’s like to win in Texas. Put simply, this is probably Terry’s job that he will lose
John Calipari, Kentucky Coach: Other things being equal, there are few reasons for a men’s basketball coach to leave Kentucky for Texas. However, circumstances for Calipari in the UK are no longer ideal as he A) holds onto a national championship almost every year despite an immensely talented squad, B) has not been in the Final Four since 2015, C) is performing worst season in the modern School history two years ago, D) lost to Saint Peter’s in the first round of the NCAA tournament last March, and E) took a No. 1 team on KenPom.com this preseason and started two quadrants 2-4 in the first season with zero wins over the top 40 KenPom teams.
UK fans are frustrated and uneasy. A close friend of Calipari’s told me last summer that Calipari should have taken the UCLA job after Steve Alford was fired in 2019 because “this thing got going in Kentucky.” I understand the mood. Calipari jumping to Texas after this season — especially if he doesn’t live up to expectations — for a fresh start with a new fan base and a set of expectations would make sense from a quality of life perspective, especially considering UT has the kind of Resources that would allow him to match Kentucky dollar for dollar if it came to that.
Brooklyn Nets assistant Royal Ivey: Ivey, a former Texas player, was joined for the job by former UT star and current Nets star Kevin Durant after Shaka Smart left for Marquette in 2021. That alone makes him a candidate. Hiring someone with no college campus experience for a job of this magnitude is always a risk for obvious reasons, but Ivey deserves consideration given his background and reputation in the NBA.
Eric Musselman, Arkansas coach: Coaches don’t often give up really good jobs when things are going as well as they did at Musselman in Arkansas — but Texas is the kind of job almost everyone should consider. A call to Musselman is therefore worthwhile. Was he really going to Texas? Not sure. But as my friend and colleague Seth Davis has pointed out, where coaches and their families live is often a factor. Austin is a big and justifiably great American city that (with all due respect) might offer some things that a college town in Arkansas can’t.
Chris Holtmann, Ohio State Coach: The Ohio state job is comparable to the Texas job as it is a great school job with unlimited resources. In a vacuum, this would be something like a lateral movement. But some OSU fans would like to point out that Holtmann has made zero sweet 16s in five years with the Buckeyes (despite winning games in three of the last four NCAA tournaments). If Ohio State rebounds in the first or second round of the NCAA tournament this season — to expand and deepen the narrative — Holtmann could consider a move to Texas for more or less the same reasons that Smart did two ago years ago from Texas.
Jerome Tang, Kansas State Coach: Tang, who just spent 19 years in Texas as Scott Drew’s assistant at Baylor, has had a great start to his first season at Kansas State. Granted, people don’t typically change jobs after a season, but it does happen. If Tang continues to do well with the Wildcats, it’s not hard to imagine the Longhorns looking his way in March.
forecast
Caretaker coaches who do well sometimes get the job, and I expect that will be the case in Texas. Terry is already 5-1 as coach of the Longhorns. His team is ranked 10th on KenPom.com and 13th on the NET. The Horns are talented, experienced and good. So I’m just assuming Terry will win in January, February and March and will do enough to convince the UT administration to give him the job for good. It’s undoubtedly the simplest – and it might also be the smartest.