Forget whether North Carolina’s inclusion in the NCAA Tournament as a play-in No. 11 seed in the South Region was justified. The most intriguing storyline of the First Four isn’t the Tar Heels getting in over West Virginia and others. It’s Rodney Terry, who needs an NCAA Tournament win and perhaps much more than that to keep his job at Texas, finding second life — and putting on pause what would have been the second-biggest job to hit the coaching carousel of the 2025 cycle.
But that’s just the start of it. The coach he’s facing on the other sideline in the First Four, Xavier’s Sean Miller, already has a history intertwined with Terry.
In 2023, Terry first took over the Texas job on an interim basis when Chris Beard was let go over domestic violence charges. Terry, according to folks in the know in Austin, was not expected to retain the job after that season. While he was known as a strong recruiter and well liked by the players, he hadn’t built a strong resumé during previous head coaching stops at UTEP and Fresno State. The expectation was athletics director Chris Del Conte would go big-game hunting, per usual. But under Terry’s leadership, the Longhorns not only rebounded from a terribly adverse situation — they won the Big 12 Tournament, then punched their first Sweet Sixteen berth in a decade-plus, matching up with … Xavier and Miller, who had just started his second tour of duty with the Musketeers.
Is it your year to win the bracket pool? You won’t know if you don’t play! Enter your March Madness® brackets today to compete with friends and for prizes!
Any game in the tournament is high stakes, but little did the college basketball world know that there was much more on the line than a trip to the Elite Eight. As it turns out, the Texas job was the real prize. Texas found a smooth victory that day and while the Longhorns fell in the next round to Miami, blowing a double-digit lead with about 10 minutes remaining, Terry had the interim tag removed from his title and was rewarded with a multi-year contract.
2025 NCAA Tournament: Which First Four team has the best chance to make a deep March Madness run?
Zachary Pereles
Last week, Chip Brown of Horns247 reported what had long been speculated among coaching circles: if Xavier had won in 2023, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte would have offered Miller the job instead of Terry. Del Conte had done his due diligence on Miller and was ready to make him Texas’ next coach, but the optics of giving him the job over a man who had just beat him for one of the biggest wins in program history were too difficult to ignore.
Considering Texas had been expected to fire Terry barring another deep run, and that we already know Del Conte admires Miller and, well – that’s a juicy storyline that adds quite a bit to Wednesday night’s matchup. That backstory explains Del Conte’s “wait, what?” reaction to the draw Selection Sunday.
With Xavier back in the NCAA Tournament after a one-year hiatus, Miller is proving that he’s still among the best in the game. His career winning percentage is well north of .700 during his stops at Arizona and Xavier. He has only finished outside of the top-five in Conference play twice in 20 years as a head coach and he’s led teams to the Elite Eight on four separate occasions. He can recruit at a high level, employs aggressive assistant coaches and is built for the fast-moving world of the transfer portal.
Give Texas (19-15) credit. Headed into the SEC Tournament they had lost seven of their last 10 games and were on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble. Thanks to an opening round win over tournament-bound Vanderbilt, a thrilling double-overtime win over Texas A&M and a mostly competitive showing in quarterfinal loss to Tennessee, the Longhorns were able to squeak into the First Four.
Texas has a bonafide game changer in freshman sensation Tre Johnson. The SEC’s Freshman of the Year, the 6-foot-6 shooting guard is a potential top-five NBA Draft pick who can carry a team on any given night thanks to his deep bag on the offensive end. He’s surrounded by enough talent and experience in Arthur Kaluma, Tramon Mark and others that they could easily get rolling and win a few games.
Tre Johnson is Texas’ most dynamic freshman scorer since Kevin Durant, but his March run could be short-lived
Chris Hummer
On the other side, Xavier has things headed in the right direction at the right time. Devastated by injuries early, the Musketeers started just 1-4 in Big East play before winning 12 of their last 16 games to earn a postseason bid.
Fifth year senior big man Zach Freemantle has played through pain while providing a consistent presence in the post. Indiana State transfer Ryan Conwell has proven to be one of the most explosive scorers in the Big East and the athletic guard is averaging 24.4 points an outing over the last five games. Any weapon that Texas may have, Xavier can match.
Can anybody say with 100 percent certainty that Terry won’t be back in Austin if Texas loses? No. Only Del Conte knows that answer. But there’s enough reported smoke to think that there could be fire.
College basketball hot seat rankings: Where 17 underwhelming coaches stand as high-major carousel picks up
David Cobb
Could Miller be a prime candidate in Austin a second time if he takes out Terry? It stands to reason that if he was that close to getting the job in 2023 that he could be a candidate again this spring. And what if Terry beats Miller but Texas’ tourney run is short-lived and Del Conte pulls the trigger, do those he-just-beat-him optics come back into play again and make Miller less attractive? If they do, it could mean millions out of his pocket considering Texas has a tendency to break the bank when it comes to landing big-time names.
There’s a lot more on the line in Dayton than your regular First Four bout.
