By Aidan Joly
On Thursday, Texas officially parted ways with head coach Chris Beard amid domestic violence charges.
Assistant coach Rodney Terry, who has been running the team since Beard’s arrest on December 12, is now set to take over for the remainder of the season.
The Texas job is one of the most attractive jobs in the country. Whoever lands this job will have no shortage of resources, top-of-the-line recruits in a basketball-rich state, some of the best facilities in the country and tons of alumni support. Expect the administration to swing for the fences.
Here’s seven candidates that could make sense for this job.
Rodney Terry, interim head coach
Obviously, the list has to start with the guy running the team right now. Since Terry took over, the Longhorns are 6-1. He is from the state and was on Rick Barnes’ staff at Texas from 2002-2011 before having a pair of head coaching jobs at Fresno State and UTEP. He knows what winning at Texas looks like. At this point, this is probably Terry’s job to lose.
Jamie Dixon, TCU head coach
Dixon’s name was one of the first ones that was thrown around on social media as a possibility. Dixon has been at TCU and in the Big 12 since 2016 and has led the Horned Frogs to a pair of NCAA tournaments and this year’s squad looks to be the best he has had in his time in Fort Worth. Dixon knows how to win and is probably worth a call. But will Texas be able to lure him away from his alma mater? We will see.
Jerome Tang, Kansas State head coach
This is Tang’s first year as a head coach, but he has the most Big 12 experience out of anyone that is on this list. He was Scott Drew’s right-hand man for one of the most impressive program turnarounds in the history of the sport, culminating in a national championship for Baylor in 2021 after he joined the staff with Drew in 2003. In his first year as a head coach, he has Kansas State off to a 14-1 start. It’s rare that head coaches leave after one season, but maybe it happens here.
Royal Ivey, Brooklyn Nets assistant
This is one that would fire up the fanbase. Ivey was a star guard for the Longhorns in the early 2000s before turning it into a 10-year NBA career and has been in coaching since. Currently, he is an assistant coach for the Brooklyn Nets and recently served as the head coach of the South Sudan national team. However, he has never coached college basketball, which could be a drawback. It’s worth noting that he has interviewed for this job before, when he was passed over for Beard in 2021.
Chris Holtmann, Ohio State head coach
On paper, this would be a lateral move. Ohio State, similar to Texas, has a lot of the things mentioned in the introduction. Near-unlimited resources, fan support, recruiting, top-notch facilities. You wonder if Holtmann could make more money at Texas and perhaps more important, if Holtmann has gotten all he can get out of the OSU job. He may be someone who is up for a new challenge, and Texas may be a good fit. It may be a situation where he decides to get out before OSU can make a decision on him, similar to how Shaka Smart left Texas for Marquette in 2021.
Eric Musselman, Arkansas head coach
There probably aren’t too many jobs across the country that Musselman would leave Arkansas for, but this may be one of them. Things are going really well for him right now, but Texas giving Musselman a call is a call worth making. Would he do it though? Not sure. But this is the type of job that just about anyone would consider. Which leads to the final candidate…
John Calipari, Kentucky head coach
Believe it or not, Kentucky has not won an NCAA tournament game since 2019. It likely would have won at least one or two in 2020, but that’s not the world we live in. Kentucky missed the NCAA tournament in 2021 with a historically bad season by program standards and then lost St. Peter’s in the first round last year. It hasn’t gotten much better this year, with a 10-5 start and 1-2 in the SEC. Calipari has only one national championship at Kentucky (2012) and hasn’t made the Final Four since 2015, with one of the best rosters in the sport nearly every year.
Kentucky fans are getting restless and the noise is getting louder that the Calipari-Kentucky marriage may have run its course. Maybe a move to Texas would be beneficial for all three parties?
Prediction: As long as the Longhorns keep winning, administration takes the interim tag off of Terry after the season and gives him the full-time job. It’s undoubtedly the easiest thing to do and he might even be the best guy for the job.
AJ Hoops 