BIG 12 CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TIPOFF MEDIA DAY

October 18, 2023

Rodney Terry

Texas Longhorns

Media Day Press Conference

RODNEY TERRY: It's a great day to be alive, and excited about being here. I have two of my current players with me. I have Max Abmas with me today, Dillon Mitchell. We're excited about this coming season.

I think the Big 12, just like every year, is going to have a chance to be the best conference in the country, and we're excited about competing this year in elite competition.

Q. Going off that statement, how competitive do you expect this conference to be, especially considering the new additions?

RODNEY TERRY: Well, last year you'd argue it was the best league in the country. Don't really look for a drop-off this year with it being -- again, I think we have a chance to have the best league in the country again with the addition of the four schools coming in this year.

Coach Sampson coming in, talk about a Final Four program. Mark is doing a great job at BYU, and Johnny has done a great job at Central Florida and Wes, bringing in Cincinnati, a basketball tradition school there and stuff.

What we already have in our league, there's no nights off in our league. Every night you have to bring your A game, whether you're at home or on the road.

Again, I think we have a chance to have the best league in the country from a basketball standpoint.

Q. Can you talk about what IT Horton and Max Abmas have brought so far.

RODNEY TERRY: I think when you talk about both of those guys, I think they're both winners. Max is a guy that's won at a very high level. He's a guy that scored as many points as you want to score in his career, but he's excited about having an opportunity to try to win on this stage and have a chance to represent Texas.

He's a native Texan from Dallas, and getting a chance to play at the flagship program in the state, he's excited about that.

When you talk about IT, Mr. Horton, you talk about a guy who's played over 100 games. He has a chance not to be a good shooter but has a chance to be an elite shooter, and both of those guys bring shooting to our program, and scoring prowess, as well.

They're two very unselfish players to go along with it. They're guys that have to say, hey, every time you're open, I want you shooting the basketball. I don't care if you miss, you've got to shoot the next one. They're unselfish players but they just want to win at the highest level.

Q. How does Tyrese Hunter have to change his game playing with Max Abmas compared to Marcus Carr?

RODNEY TERRY: I don't think he necessarily has to change his game. The one thing I've asked Tyrese to do more this year is to take a little bit more ownership in the team and being a vocal leader. Where he wants to go at the next level, he has to be a guy that communicates at a high level at all times, and I do think they're complements of one another and can play with each other really well.

They've been playing together now since the summer, and I think they feed off each other.

Both guys, they both have a really good burst up the floor, and it doesn't matter who's bringing the ball up the floor and initiating the offense. Both guys can score off the ball a little bit, as well. I think they're going to be a dynamic duo together and really enjoy playing with one another.

Q. You brought up Wes Miller and Cincinnati a little earlier. What does Cincinnati's program bring to the Big 12 and what are some of the challenges of playing in a new environment on the road this year?

RODNEY TERRY: I can remember my time back with Coach Wainwright at UNC. We used to go over and play Coach Huggins' teams over at Cincinnati, and you talk about a basketball tradition there and you talk about the great players that played there, just a great program.

Wes has recruited really well. I watched his teams play and their style of play. It's going to fit really well in the Big 12, as well. Anytime you go there and play at Cincinnati, it's going to be a battle now. It's definitely a great venue to play in, as well.

Again, they're going to elevate this league in terms of the program that they're bringing in to Big 12 competition.

Q. Part of this I'm sure is just the natural changes to the landscape in college basketball, but you guys dealt with a lot of roster uncertainty this spring and into June, probably later than coaches maybe have been comfortable being flexible in the past. Could you take me through how you navigated that and managed the roster through some of the bumps through April and May.

RODNEY TERRY: Sure. Again, I think over the years, you haven't had to deal with the portal and all that good stuff, but dealing with that, and we've all had to re-recruit our players. That started five, ten years ago where you have to re-recruit your players back and things of that nature at the end of the season when you sit done and you kind of assess where things are and if they're still really happy being where they are.

Then from there I think you have to build out and see what complements really what you have that you're able to retain with your team.

We had one guy when the season ended that said, hey, I'm definitely coming back in Brock Cunningham, a guy who made a lot of winning plays for us last year, but one guy.

From that point on, I think you had to, again, take a deep breath, kind of sit back, and try to re-recruit some of your guys back and let them know they have an opportunity to come back. We had Dillon Mitchell in the draft and we wished him well and wanted him to do well in the draft but let him know also if you don't like the feedback you have you're more than welcome to come back and still play a big part in what we're trying to build here and do here Texas. The same can be said about Tyrese Hunter as well.

Then we went in the portal and really tried to find guys that complemented the guys we had coming back. Dylan Disu said he was coming back, and really just tried to fill the needs that we had. We were able to go in and get a Max Abmas to come. We knew we needed to find another scorer and a guy that could really shoot the ball for us. We knew we needed another big. We lost Christian Bishop and were able to get Kadin Shedrick from Virginia. He is going to be a terrific player for us as well.

We knew we needed more shooting, and we were able to pick up IT late, Horton late in the portal. We picked up some young guards as well. Kendall Weaver, WAC freshman of the year at UTA last season, and Chris Johnson became available and was a Texas kid and has a chance to be a good young player, as well.

We picked up another big from UTEP. We needed more more physicality in Zurich, as well.

I think, again, every year you're going to have to manage your roster and really just try to find and put together a roster that complements one another, and I think our staff has done a great job of identifying those guys and we were able to get those guys to join our program.

Q. It seems like the fan base are focused more on the football aspect, but for men's basketball, have there conversations of keeping Texas and Texas Tech playing beyond when you guys move into the SEC?

RODNEY TERRY: You know what, I think for us in that regards, I think we're going to have to really sit and look at what our schedule looks like and things of that nature there and stuff. Obviously we're excited about competing this year. Always talk about living where your feet are, so it's kind of hard to project what we're going to be able to do in the future in terms of scheduling and being able to have certain types of match-ups and things of that nature there.

But we will look closely at that and see if the opportunity presents itself to where that fits in our schedule in coming years to play, as well.