Everything Texas Longhorns Coach Rodney Terry Said in Pre-Season Availability

Texas men's basketball starts its season on Monday against Ohio State.

Texas men's basketball head coach Rodney Terry answers question from the news media on Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024 after a practice session that was held at the Moody Center. Sports writers got their first glimpse of the 2024-25 team at this event. / Ricardo B. Brazziell/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

AUSTIN -- Texas men's basketball head coach Rodney Terry spoke to the media one last time before the team flies to Las Vegas to face Ohio State on Monday evening.

Here's what he had to say:

On facing a Power 5 team on opening night:

"Can we change that? (laughs) You know what, you get challenged right off the bat. (Ohio State is a) well-coached team, Jake (Diebler) has done a great job with this program there. He's got some great returners in (Bruce) Thornton, Thornton is one of the best guards in the country. I think you want to find out early where you are, we played two Big 12 teams to this point right now (in closed-door scrimmages). We jumped right in there in terms of playing well-coached teams, teams with older players, which we will play on Monday night again. I think what it does for you, really helps set the tone for us in November, it's going to be about our identity. Who are we going to be in November? We're going to be a team every night that comes in and tries to guard really hard, or we're going to be a team that values taking care of the basketball. We're going to get tested on all those things at an elite level at a neutral court. So I think it will be great for us. It's great exposure, we're playing in a prime time slot, so there will be a lot of eyeballs around the country on Texas basketball."

On the scrimmages against TCU and Colorado:

"I think we had great effort, great energy. I thought we had great bench energy. We didn't have any guys moping around about or pouting about playing time. I thought everyone was really connected and locked in together in both the scrimmages. I thought we did a better job in our second scrimmage taking care of the ball than we did in the first one, which is again to be expected, especially early in the year, just learning the value (of) taking care of the basketball, making simple plays, and then at the end of the day just getting used to playing with each other. Familiarity on the game situations. Familiarity with the game situations. You can only assimilate so much in practice. When you get out there between the lines in the game situation, guys have to have a feel for what guys are capable of doing, what they're not capable of doing, what positions they're good at...That all comes into play in game situations. But we did a better job of taking the ball (against Colorado). We had something like 21 turnovers in the first game, and in the last game, we had nine, three at half. So we did a much better job of just keeping the game simple."

On Tre Johnson's work ethic:

"If you're going to be a young player that established some form of leadership, you've got to be able to walk the walk first. He's in this gym 24/7, he's the kind of guy that overtrains in terms of his work ethic and the guys respect that. Tre Johnson is here at six in the morning, he didn't have to be here at six. He's in at six in the morning working on his shooting. He's in here in the afternoon, when he gets out of class, at six in the afternoon. And he's working on his game. He's one of those guys (who) is just kind of an old-school throwback guy to where you literally need to lock the doors and keep guys out. I mean they just live in the gym. But that's what gives him a chance to be really good at his craft and what he does. He's earned the respect of his teammates by his work ethic and also being a great teammate in terms of how he's around those guys and these guys spend time with each other. They like being around each other."

On closing the gap between veterans and newcomers:

"Young players, we always have those guys try to have an attitude and approach every day. And practice is a game. Every day is a game, right? The one thing with young players, is you're fighting experience, but experience every day in practice is much different than the high school experience for them...Everybody's been the best player on their team. A walk-on has been the best player on their high school teams. It teaches those guys really quick that they've got to play with a lot of effort and energy on every play. We have an energy and effort chart that we have up after every practice, after every game, and it shows guys energy and teaches them how to be effort players. You can't say 'You know what, run the floor really hard.' No, we charted running the floor. You ran it about five times, really hard in practice today or in the game...Just teaching guys how to play hard and how to be a multiple-effort player. They gain experience in practice every day...They're going to be learning every day for the rest of their lives that they make this an occupation, just like coaching. Veterans, coaches, are learning every day."