Nashville – While the last horn sounded in the 83-72 victory in Tennessee against Texas during the dry tournament on Friday, the flight coach Rick Barnes and the longhorns coach Rodney Terry met in the middle of the field for a handshake that turned into a brief hug on the point. For the unreal eye, it was no different from many trainer-coach interactions in an post-match handle line.
But bubbling under the surface was a painful poetry for a barnes mentor which once wore uncomfortable shoes now inhabited by Terry, a protégé which led under barnes during their historic race in the 2000s.
Barnes, who was dismissed in Texas almost exactly a decade, may have put the nail in the proverbial coffin of the Mandate of Texas of his good friend a decade later.
“Really, you feel like you are playing against your family,” said Barnes a few minutes later, “and it’s difficult.”
Beat volunteers n ° 4 with fresh legs less than 24 hours after winning a double prolongation victory against his Rival Texas A&M was going to be a head challenge for the Texas seeded n ° 13. But the result means that the longhorns left their fate of the NCAA tournament to the selection committee while Terry also twists in the wind in the midst of generalized speculation according to which his mandate could be finished without a walking race.
With seven Quad 1 victories, Texas has a case for the inclusion of the NCAA tournament. But the Longhorns also played one of the lowest conference hours in the country and entered the day among the “first four” in the Jerry Palm range.
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This is perhaps why Barnes took on him, without abundance, for half the longhorns with his declaration of opening on Friday evening.
“The greatest respect for the University of Texas and Rodney and its staff,” said Barnes. “I think it was the fifth or sixth game where they had all their team intact while trying to play. They came here in a very difficult situation. For me, there is no doubt that they are a team from the NCAA, the fact that it came here and made them play as they were.”
Barnes was fired from Texas fired after being rebounded in the first round of the Big Dance 2015. The Tennessee picked it up quickly and he was the architect of a golden era in the history of the program in the last 10 seasons.
In the process, Barnes and Terry’s relationship, several decades, has entered a new chapter because they have become frequent enemies in the past three seasons. Barnes now has a 4-0 file against the Longhorns in Terry’s passage as an temporary or full-time chief coach of the program they built together.
Terry worked as a barnes assistant in Texas from 2002 to 11 while Texas has become a national power. He was on the bench for the only trip to Barnes in 2003 and for Big 12 titles in 2006 and 2008 before leaving to become head coach at Fresno State in 2011.
“The coach is a family for me,” said Terry before Texas and Tennessee play in the second round of the NCAA tournament last season. “He is one of my greatest mentors. He has been incredible throughout my career. We love each other.”
Their basketball families are a tree overlapping with branches that meet. Among them, the director general of Texas, Chris Ogden, who was a assistant at Terry Under Barnes in Texas and then worked for Barnes in Tennessee. Texas’ second -year assistant Frank Haith was also a barnes assistant for Longhorns from 2001 to 2004, to appoint some examples of the obvious overlap of their Texas centered network.
Barnes has always wanted not to plan matches against the members of his coach tree, perhaps to avoid exact situations like the one that occurred on Friday in Bridgestone Arena.
“It’s difficult because you know what, we have won many games in Texas,” said Barnes. “These guys were a large part.
After stays as head coach of Fresno State and UTEP, Terry returned to Texas as an assistant under Chris Beard in 2021 and became the acting coach at the start of the 2022-23 season.
Terry obtained full -time work by guiding Texas to Elite Eight in 2023. Last season, he lost against Barnes and Tennessee in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
If the Longhorns are denied access to the great dance director and the sports director Chris Dé Conte chooses to make a change of coach, the last match of the Terry NCAA tournament will have been against Barnes and potentially his last match.
But if Barnes had the last word, there is no doubt that his old school and his nearby friend would hear their names called Sunday.
“A great respect for the University of Texas and this basketball program,” he said.
