Texas Basketball Coach Slams UCF Players for ‘Classless’ Horns Down Gesture

Terry’s frustration boiled over after the loss to UCF on Wednesday night.

Following Wednesday night’s 77–71 home loss to UCF, Texas coach Rodney Terry walked through the handshake line and talked sternly to Knights players, calling their “horns down” gestures classless.

Instead of focusing on what his team did wrong in defeat, the story coming out of Wednesday night’s game centered around Terry’s reaction to UCF’s celebration following the school’s big road win in Austin.

Not sure what was said or happened, but here's #Texas head coach Rodney Terry telling some #UCF players in the handshake line, "That's classless. Don't do that shit." #HookEm pic.twitter.com/XXS3E4zIIB

— Tyler Feldman (@TylerFeldmanTV) January 18, 2024

“I’m a big believer in you win the right way, you lose the right way… you carry yourself the right way,” Terry said in the postgame press conference. “You don’t go through the handshake line, or prior to getting to the handshake line, and have about six or seven guys putting horns down. We don’t do that.”

“When you do those kind of things it looks very classless and it also looks like you were just hoping to win,” Terry continued. “We never go into games hoping to win, we go into games expecting to win, so we don’t act like that. We expect to win.”

Here's what #Texas head coach Rodney said happened in the handshake line with #UCF:

"About 6 or 7 guys putting the horns down. We don't do that because when you do those kinds of things, it looks very classless."#HookEm | @KVUE pic.twitter.com/qV0nVNgb24

— Tyler Feldman (@TylerFeldmanTV) January 18, 2024

One way for Texas to prevent this from happening on its home floor would be to start playing better basketball. The Longhorns have lost three out of four to start Big 12 play and appear to be heading in the wrong direction as the calendar moves into late January. 

Texas entered the season expecting to be an NCAA tournament team, but the results say otherwise. The Longhorns return to the floor on Saturday at home against No. 9 Baylor.