The Longhorns have officially fired their men's basketball head coach Rodney Terry after yet another early exit from the NCAA Tournament, following a highly disappointing debut season in the SEC.
Since the Horns' loss to Xavier in the First Four round of the Tournament, rumors have been flying from left and right that Terry would be ousted sooner rather than later but the news didn't officially break until the morning of Sunday, March 23.
Breaking: Texas has informed head coach Rodney Terry he's been fired, sources told @jeffborzello. pic.twitter.com/aMsNQWqxgq
— ESPN (@espn) March 23, 2025
Terry took over in the middle of 2022-23 after the Texas athletic department parted ways with former head coach Chris Beard, who now coaches the Ole Miss Rebels. He became the official head coach on March 27, 2023.
Throughout his three-year tenure as the Longhorns' head coach, he earned a 62-37 overall record but never progressed farther than the Elite Eight, which only happened at the end of the season when he took over for Beard.
At the end of the 2023-24 season, Texas was knocked out of the NCAA Tournament in the Round of 32 by yet another former Horns' head coach, Rick Barnes, and the Tennessee Volunteers.
This year, with the loss to Xavier in the First Four (a virtual play-in game), Longhorn fans were calling for Terry's head over the four-day stretch between the end of the game and the announcement of his departure from the program.
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Terry was an assistant coach under Barnes from 2002 until 2011 before leaving to be a head coach for Fresno State and then UTEP. He returned to Texas in 2021 as an assistant under Beard.