Shortly after beating the Rice Owls in overtime last month on the day that former head coach Chris Beard was arrested on a felony domestic violence charge, Texas Longhorns head coach Rodney Terry, now the interim head coach, called his former boss and mentor in Austin, Rick Barnes, the Tennessee Volunteers head coach, to discuss the situation.
The message from Barnes to his former top assistant with the Longhorns for nine years surrounded Terry’s readiness for the moment and his ability to handle it, a meaningful exchange for a coach whose big break came when Barnes hired him from UNC-Wilmington in 2002 to return to the Big 12.