Texas MBB: Highlights, Heat and Holland

Photo:  Scott Wachter-USA TODAY Sports

The Texas Men’s Basketball team is now 10-2 under head coach Rodney Terry. Their 75-89 win over Oklahoma State at the Moody Center on Tuesday night seemed to emphasize the “team first” style of basketball as four different Longhorns scored in double-digits, including Brock Cunningham who had a career-high 15 points (5-6 from the field, 3-3 on 3PT attempts ). Marcus Carr led the way in scoring with 21 points and the team shot over 61% from the 3 point line. The ‘Horns will have a tough next few games as they travel to Tennessee to take on the 4th-ranked Volunteers, travel back home to face the 17th-ranked Baylor Bears, then head to the state of Kansas to take on 5th-ranked Kansas State and then the 9th-ranked Kansas Jayhawks (rankings subject to change by then). The Big-12 continues to show the rest of the NCAA how competitive they are. 

On Monday, guard Marcus Carr and forward Christian Bishop spoke to the media regarding their individual goals along with the team’s mindset as a whole so far this season. Summarizing Bishop’s availability, he said that he feels “like I have to be the defensive anchor… I [Bishop] feel like a physical force. Unguardable really.”  He spoke highly of freshman forward Dillon Mitchell and said that Mitchell “doesn’t play like a freshman to me at all.” He was asked if the team hears comments pointed towards them about Chris Beard when playing on the road: “that’s old stuff for us… not even paying too much attention to that.” To summarize Carr, he feels like he “was gradually building up to the point where I [Carr] was being more aggressive anyways… coach is always telling me to stay aggressive and stay attacking” when asked about his growth and role in Coach Terry’s system. When asked about the Big-12 Conference, he said “it’s the best league in basketball right now… it’s been fun to see how we’ve grown and how we can be able to finish these games.” The quote of the day though? Carr said “no matter what, we are never out of it.” That statement seems to hold true, as the Longhorns only have 3 losses on the season up to this point. 

University of Texas 2023 5-star signee Ron Holland was named a McDonald’s All-American earlier this week. Holland is a 6-8 forward from Duncanville who is ranked as the number 1 power forward in the nation, the number 1 recruit in the state AND is ranked as the 6th best player in the country. Holland will be the 23rd player in UT program history to play in the MAA game and is averaging, in his senior year, over 21 points and 9 rebounds per game. It seems as if Holland and Coach Terry have a strong relationship, as Coach Terry tweeted out a congratulatory photo and message with the future Longhorn, even though Holland did commit when Chris Beard was still Head Coach. All that being said, the future looks bright for this Texas Basketball team.