NASHVILLE — As the final horn sounded on Tennessee’s 83-72 win over Texas at the SEC Tournament on Friday, Vols coach Rick Barnes and Longhorns coach Rodney Terry met at mid-court for a handshake that turned in to a brief on-the-move hug. To the untrained eye, it was no different than many coach-to-coach interactions in a postgame handshake line.
But bubbling beneath the surface was a painful poetry for a mentor in Barnes who once wore the uncomfortable shoes now inhabited by Terry, a protégée who coached under Barnes during their historic run in the 2000s.
Barnes, who was fired at Texas almost exactly a decade ago, may have put the nail in the proverbial coffin of his good friend’s Texas tenure a decade later.
“Really you feel like you’re playing against your family,” Barnes said a few minutes later, “and it’s tough.”
Beating the fresh-legged No. 4 seed Volunteers less than 24 hours after completing a double-overtime victory against rival Texas A&M was going to be a tall order for No. 13 seed Texas. But the outcome means the Longhorns have left their NCAA Tournament fate up to the selection committee as Terry also twists in the wind amid widespread speculation that his tenure could be over without a March run.
With seven Quad 1 victories, Texas has a case for NCAA Tournament inclusion. But the Longhorns also played one of the nation’s weakest non-conference schedules and entered the day among the “First Four Out” in Jerry Palm’s Bracketology.
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Perhaps that’s why Barnes took it upon himself, unprompted, to stump for the Longhorns with his opening statement Friday evening.
“Utmost respect for the University of Texas and Rodney and his staff,” Barnes said. “I think this was the fifth or sixth game where they had their whole team intact trying to play. They came in here in a very tough situation. To me there’s no doubt they’re an NCAA team, the fact that he came in here and got ’em playing the way they were.”
Barnes was fired at Texas fired after getting bounced in the first round of the 2015 Big Dance. Tennessee scooped him up quickly, and he’s been the architect of a golden era in the program’s history over the past 10 seasons.
In the process, Barnes and Terry’s decades-long relationship has entered a new chapter as they’ve become frequent foes over the past three seasons. Barnes now owns a 4-0 record against the Longhorns in Terry’s stint as either the interim or full-time head coach of the program they once built together.
Terry worked as an assistant for Barnes at Texas from 2002-11 as Texas developed into a national power. He was on the bench for Barnes’ only Final Four trip in 2003 and for Big 12 titles in 2006 and 2008 before departing to become the head coach at Fresno State in 2011.
“Coach is family to me,” Terry said before Texas and Tennessee played in the second round of last season’s NCAA Tournament. “He’s one of my biggest mentors. He’s been incredible throughout my career. We love each other.”
Their basketball families are an overlapping tree with intersecting branches. Among them is Texas general manager Chris Ogden, who was an assistant with Terry under Barnes at Texas and later worked for Barnes at Tennessee. Second-year Texas assistant Frank Haith was also an assistant under Barnes for the Longhorns from 2001-04, just to name a couple examples of the obvious overlap in their Texas-centered network.
Barnes has always made a point of not scheduling games against members of his coaching tree, perhaps to avoid the exact situations like the one that transpired Friday at Bridgestone Arena.
“It’s tough, because, you know what, we won a lot of games at Texas,” Barnes said. “Those guys were a huge, huge part of it. I look at them this year. I mean, coming into a new league had to be an adjustment for them and Oklahoma. The fact that (is) both of those teams at the end of the year (are) playing high-level basketball. I know Rodney this year struggled with some injuries, trying to work in a super talent like he has in Tre Johnson is tough.”
After stints as the head coach at Fresno State and UTEP, Terry returned to Texas as an assistant under Chris Beard in 2021 season and became the interim coach early in the 2022-23 season.
Terry earned the full-time job by guiding Texas to the Elite Eight in 2023. Last season, he lost to Barnes and Tennessee in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
If the Longhorns are denied access to the Big Dance and athletic director Chris Del Conte elects to make a coaching change, Terry’s final NCAA Tournament game will have been against Barnes and potentially his final game at all.
But if Barnes had the final say, there’s no doubt his former school and his close friend would hear their names called Sunday.
“Great respect for the University of Texas and that basketball program,” he said.
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