This one hurts.

This feels kind of like the proverbial “dagger” for the 2024-25 Men’s Basketball team. I don’t really want to write this because there’s nothing good to take away from this game. But here are 3 immediate takeaways:

Julian Larry Should Not be on the Court.

I’m not an expert in analytics or anything like that. But the entire second half, I kept asking myself “why is Julian Larry in the game?”

Every single momentum-swinging play seemed to involve Larry, in a bad way. Larry got his lunch eaten by both Hoggard and Edwards on every significant possession. Additionally, Larry adds nothing on offense.

Rodney Terry needs to keep this man off the court at all costs to save his job.

Rodney Terry’s Seat Just Became Scorching Hot.

Speaking of Rodney Terry, this felt like it was a must-win. After the embarrassing performance earlier this week against Arkansas, this felt like RT needed to get this one. RT’s job at this point rests on a tournament birth. Texas needs to win *AT LEAST* 3 – OU, Georgia, and South Carolina are absolutely necessary. Texas will also have another shot at Arkansas, who feels like they’re getting really hot at this point in the season, and absolutely bodied Texas the last meeting in Austin. The more I look at the schedule, the less I see it happening. So unless RT gets this team together, this will be his last season in Austin.

This Team Frustrates the Hell Out of Me.

Everyone knew that this year’s roster in Austin was not the best version of itself – obviously losing out on J.T. Toppin hurt us, but the 2 Indiana State transfers, Larry and Jayson Kent, have largely been duds. Arthur Kaluma has been the best version of himself in Austin, while Jordan Pope has been very okay. Pryor has been a nice come-on late in the season and Shedrick has really improved as the season has gone on. Tre Johnson is phenomenal, but he’s still just a freshman.

This is all to say that this team is frustrating. It feels like this Texas team has other teams on the rope and then fails to deliver a killing blow. Look at Ole Miss and Vandy – two games that played out similarly. At some point, Texas gets a double-digit lead and has one possession where they don’t turn a 10-11-point lead into a 13-14-point lead. Then, either Ole Miss or Vandy makes a big shot to bring it down to a single-digit lead, then the fall comes and Texas goes dry for 3-4 minutes and all of a sudden, tie ball game.

My ultimate point is this team is not maximizing itself. Texas is wasting the best basketball player on campus since KD in Tre Johnson. Ultimately talent maximization is a coaching issue, which everyone knows. Ultimately, these next 7 games will tell us what we need to know: but I think everyone can hear the echoes of the fat lady singing.

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