Texas Basketball: Sweet 16 berth enough for Rodney Terry to get the job?

For the second consecutive year, Texas basketball made it to the Round of 32 in the NCAA Tournament. This year, interim head coach Rodney Terry led Texas to the Round of 32 after his squad came up with a convincing 20-point win over the 15-seed Colgate Raiders and head coach Matt Langel in the Round of 64 Midwest Region on March 16.

Terry and the Longhorns will face head coach Micah Shrewsberry and the 10-seed Penn State Nittany Lions in the Round of 32 on March 18 to try and advance to the program’s first Sweet 16 since 2008. Texas has nearly been ousted in a dozen NCAA Tournaments since the last time it made it back to the Sweet 16, under former head coach Rick Barnes.

This begs the question, would the first Sweet 16 appearance since 2008 be enough for Terry to ultimately keep the job as the next full-time Texas head coach to officially have the interim tag removed?

Is a trip to the Sweet 16 enough for Rodney Terry to be the next full-time Texas basketball head coach?

I have to imagine that Terry leading the Longhorns to the Sweet 16 this year would at least put him at or near the top of the shortlist in terms of the candidates to be the next full-time Texas head coach during the 2023 offseason. And a report from Horns247 on March 16 (paid content) echoes that same sentiment that a trip to the Sweet 16 would definitely put Terry among the top candidates for the job if not the overall top candidate next offseason.

If Terry is able to lead Texas to the Sweet 16, that would mean that he took this team a step further than former Longhorns head coach Chris Beard did last year. Terry has already led the Longhorns to a Big 12 Men’s Tournament crown and a berth in the Round of 32 as a two-seed in the Midwest Region this year.

Add in a trip to the Sweet 16, and I have a hard time seeing many other head coaching candidates bringing the same argument to the table to be the next full-time men’s hoops head coach on the Forty Acres than him. That’s all not to mention the fact that Terry and his staff have done a nice job keeping together the two five-star signees from the high school ranks in the Longhorns 2023 class.

All in all, the more success that Terry finds this postseason, the better his odds are that he’s able to keep the job next year. And at this point, I think it would take a candidate the level of a Jay Wright or potentially Billy Donovan to make a convincing enough argument that Texas athletic director Chris del Conte shouldn’t stick with Terry for at least a few more years.