After Chris Beard's stunning fall, what's next for Texas hoops?
Just 25 days ago, the Texas Longhorns men's team was 7-1 and ranked as the No. 2 team in college basketball. The consensus was that the program had finally found its footing with a leader in Chris Beard, who is both an alum of the school and thought to be one of the best coaches in the sport.
On Thursday afternoon, one of the most stunning downfalls to a coaching tenure in recent memory officially came to a conclusion.
UT athletic director Chris Del Conte announced the firing of Beard amid a felony domestic family violence charge stemming from an incident on Dec. 12.
[Related: Texas fires Chris Beard amid felony domestic violence charge]
This is seismic news in college basketball, and there are a ton of different avenues to go down to react to it. Let’s begin with this: For Texas basketball, Beard was once a proud son. He was described as a perfect fit upon getting hired. The felony and firing complete an all-time decline.
There was no doubt his tenure was off to about as good a start as was imaginable. But in one night, over the span of a couple of hours on a Monday morning in December, his entire life took a big thump. The state of Texas basketball, which has long felt like a program trying to find its right leader, has that question mark hanging over it again in the most improbable of fashions. It’s back to the drawing board for the Longhorns, and an extremely critical hire for reasons more important than basketball lies ahead.
In regard to the program itself, you have to feel for the players. Lost in all of this chaos, they didn’t sign up for this and have actually managed to maintain a top-10 ranking in the AP Poll. It makes it even more shocking that the downfall of Beard has come not just at his alma mater, but while he was at the helm of one of the best teams in the country.
As for where the Longhorns turn from here, Del Conte announced that second-year associate head coach Rodney Terry will continue as acting head coach for the remainder of the season. Credit Terry for keeping the team together during these chaotic times. It will be interesting to see how this Longhorns team fares in the Big 12, which undoubtedly is the best conference in college basketball yet again.
Turning to the bigger picture, I asked a double-digit number of head coaches across the country where they would rank the Texas job in the sport.
Each one ranked the job in the top 10 nationally.
For what it’s worth, in an article published last year by Go Banking Rates, Texas was listed 18th in spending at $11,649,912. Coupling the resources and brand with a brand new, state-of-the-art home arena in the Moody Center, the pieces are certainly in place for the Longhorns to achieve success.
The fact is, the coaching carousel has a clear front-runner at this moment and barring any other shocking circumstances, that won’t be changing until the Longhorns have their new leader.
But in the midst of what’s next for Texas, one can’t help but think that the program reached a conclusion that was only a matter of time in coming.
As fast as Beard rose in college basketball, with a seven-year deal worth $35 million through 2028, he managed to fall even faster.
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