The Texas men’s basketball program was turned upside down early Monday when coach Chris Beard was arrested on a felony family violence charge and subsequently suspended. On Monday night, the Longhorns played for the first time since the development and struggled pretty much from start to finish.
Final score: Texas 87, Rice 81 in overtime.
Despite closing as a 25-point favorite, Texas needed an extra period to get past a Rice team that had previously lost to Pepperdine by 39 points and Middle Tennessee by 35. It was a lackluster performance from a group of players clearly distracted for obvious reasons.
“I thought our guys did a great job of showing a lot of grit and perseverance … through a lot of adversity,” said Texas interim coach Rodney Terry.
As Matt Norlander and I both said on Monday night’s episode of the Eye On College Basketball podcast, if it’s eventually concluded by law-enforcement officials and/or university officials that Beard did what he’s accused of doing, he should not return as Texas’ coach. Simple as that. The allegations — among them that Beard strangled his fiance — are undeniably troubling and seemingly capable of leading to the termination of the seven-year, $35 million contract Beard signed upon accepting the job to replace Shaka Smart at Texas in April 2021.
It would be an incredible fall from grace, if it comes to that.
Beard has not yet publicly addressed the allegations.
Texas remains No. 6 in Tuesday morning’s updated CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 daily college basketball rankings with Sunday’s game against Stanford in Dallas on tap. Barring a surprise, Terry will coach the Longhorns for the second time in that one. Unless something changes, he’ll remain in that role through the end of the season.
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Top 25 And 1 rankings
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