No. 19 Texas opens season against Ohio State in Las Vegas

The season opener ranks as one of the most interesting non-conference matchups for the Longhorns as Rodney Terry tips off his second season as the full-time head coach.

When the No. 19-ranked Texas Longhorns open the 2024-25 men’s basketball season in the Hall of Fame Las Vegas Opening Night event on Monday against the Ohio State Buckeyes at 9 p.m. Central on TNT, second-year head coach Rodney Terry, as always, wants the focus on his team.

“I think it’s always about our players,” Terry said last week.

“It’s about, our program, our organization, period. It’ll never be about me — I’m a small part of what we do. The face of our program is our players and who they are representing this university the right way on and off the court. But it’ll be about our brand, it’s never about me.”

And some focus will certainly be on his team.

On the highly-anticipated debut of freshman guard Tre Johnson, the No. 5 prospect in the 2024 recruiting class, according to the 247Sports Composite rankings, and a player that Terry frequently compares to Longhorn legend Kevin Durant because of his silky-smooth scoring ability.

On the six transfers that Terry brought in as part of the yearly rebuilt that now takes place across college basketball — Oregon State transfer guard Jordan Pope, Arkansas transfer wing Tramon Marks, who is dealing with a minor injury, and Creighton and Kansas State transfer forward Arthur Kaluma.

On key returning contributors like senior forward Kadin Shedrick, expected to make a second-year jump after he spent last offseason rehabilitating from shoulder surgeries, and do-it-all junior guard Chendall Weaver, the team’s gritty heart.

On the team’s ability to get out in transition because the guards help out on the glass, a key area of emphasis for the Longhorns with the lack of high-level frontcourt depth behind Shedrick and Kaluma, thanks in part to the injury sustained last year by forward signee Nic Codie and the inability to land an elite transfer big like former Oklahoma State center Brandon Garrison, who visited the Forty Acres but signed with Kentucky instead.

Ultimately, however, the focus will also be on Terry because he didn’t assemble the roster that he took to the Elite Eight in 2022-23 after the suspension and termination of former head coach Chris Beard.

Because there are still questions about the extent to which he was responsible for that team’s culture.

Because last year’s group never quite gelled on the way to tying for eighth place in the Big 12 with a 9-9 conference record and getting bounced from the NCAA Tournament in the second round by the No. 2-seed Tennessee Volunteers and former head coach Rick Barnes.

The last issue may be the most salient given Terry’s questionable track record in his previous head-coaching stops at Fresno State and UTEP, two difficult situations he was able to turn around without having true breakthrough success — it’s a resume of competency, but nothing strong enough to earn him the Texas job without an assistance from Beard’s anger management issues.

So even if Terry isn’t willing to admit it publicly, he has plenty to prove as a high-major head coach in the third year of a five-year contract that will likely require an extension next offseason if he provides enough cause for the Texas administration.

The hope is the “EBE” mentality adopted by the team — standing for “EveryBody Eats” — will help players like Pope and Indiana State transfer guard Julian Larry find more comfort in reduced roles that will keep them from having to press for points.

“I can really just come in and just play my game at a relaxed pace,” Larry said.

For Pope, that means playing off the ball at times with a shot-ready attitude and generally reducing a usage rate that was 26.3 percent last year, ninth in the Pac-12. Both players said that playing together will help decrease the pressure on them.

Last week, Pope said the right things about the team’s burgeoning culture and roster build, too.

“We have a lot of versatility at a lot of different positions, a lot of different skill sets that complement each other — I think we all play really well off each other,” Pope said.

Terry’s team prepped for the opener with scrimmages against TCU and Colorado that unsurprisingly featured some up-and-down elements of those performances. After turning the ball over 21 times in the first scrimmage, according to Terry’s recollection, the Horns reduced that number to nine in the second. The rebounding was strong in the first scrimmage while the numbers in the second scrimmage were skewed by Texas shooting poorly. In the first scrimmage, the Longhorns struggled to defend without fouling, allowing 31 free throw. In the second scrimmage, Texas got to the free-throw line more often while reducing the number of free-throw attempts by the opponent.

Texas faces an Ohio State program in its first season under 38-year-old Jake Diebler who took over as the full-time head coach after serving as the interim following the termination of his former boss Chris Holtmann. Under Diebler, the Buckeyes went 8-3 and made the NIT quarterfinals.

Currently projected as the No. 33 team nationally by BartTorvik.com’s adjusted efficiency metric and predicted to finish eighth in the 18-team Big Ten in the preseason media poll, Ohio State is led by junior guard Bruce Thornton, who is entering his third year as a starter after averaging 15.7 points and 4.8 assists per game last season.

“What I’m excited about is Bruce has grown his game, raised his level this offseason,” Diebler said. “It’s not going to be a case where you’re looking at a guy who just goes from sophomore to junior year and is a little bit better. I believe he’s going to make a jump, and he and I have talked openly about him improving his efficiency and pace and things like that, and he’s embraced that.”

Meechie Johnson will complement Thornton after returning from South Carolina, where he was a standout performer last year in averaging 14.1 points per game, while Oakland and San Diego State transfer Micah Parrish is expected to start on the wing if he’s been able to out-compete the returning starter in Evan Mahaffey.

The frontcourt has much less experience, but plenty of recruiting accolades — 7’1 Duke transfer forward Evan Bradshaw and Duke transfer forward Sean Stewart, both former consensus five-star prospects.

BartTorvik.com gives Texas a 62-percent win probability for Monday’s game. Before tipoff, the Longhorns announced that Marks (right ankle) and sophomore forward Devon Pryor (left ankle) will both be out against the Buckeyes.