No. 7 Texas’ players will try to keep their collective minds on the court and off what’s been going on away from it when the Longhorns square off against Stanford on Sunday afternoon in Dallas as part of the Pac-12 US LBM Coast-to-Coast Challenge.
The game kicks off a quadruple header at American Airlines Center that will also see the Texas women’s team play Southern California, and the Baylor men’s and women’s teams battling Washington State and Arizona, respectively.
The Longhorns (8-1) head north after a workman-like 87-81 overtime win at home over Rice on Monday which capped a tumultuous day that began with the arrest of Texas coach Chris Beard.
Texas played without Beard, who was suspended without pay on Monday pending the investigation into third-degree felony charges of family domestic assault that were filed against him earlier in the day.
Associate head coach Rodney Terry called the shots during Monday’s contest but there has been no further update from the university on who will have the team’s reins on Sunday.
“Once we got the news of (Beard’s arrest) you know, our focus, my focus was with our players and about our program,” Terry said after Monday’s win. “We have a very experienced staff that’s done a great job to this point preparing our guys for this game today.”
Marcus Carr scored a season-high 28 points and combined with Sir’Jabari Rice to produce Texas’ first 11 points in the extra period as the Longhorns did just enough to win. Timmy Allen added 15 points for Longhorns, with Dylan Mitchell scoring 12 and Rice finishing with 11 points in the win. Texas posted a 25-10 advantage in bench scoring and a 14-7 edge in fast-break points.
“Our whole mission was to control what we could control,” Terry said. “And I thought our guys did a great job of showing a lot of grit and a lot of perseverance today through a lot of adversity.”
No Texas players have been made available to the media since the news of Beard’s arrest.
The Cardinal (4-6) head to Big D after a dominating 85-40 home win over Green Bay on Friday. The win ended a 12-day break for finals and emphatically snapped a three-game losing streak for Stanford.
Ryan Agarwal led the Cardinal with 11 points, with Jarvis Moss, Brandon Angel and Spencer Jones adding 10 apiece. Stanford outshot Green Bay 54.1 percent to 26.5 percent, forced 27 turnovers that it turned into 32 points and earned a 42-14 edge in points in the paint.
The Cardinal’s bench players had more points (46) than the entire Green Bay team.
“We definitely expected to come out and really kind of punch them in the mouth just because … we had a little losing streak coming in,” Jones said. “We had to try to turn things around. So to come out and start a game like we needed to was a big, big push for us going forward. You know, moving on to Texas and other bigger teams.”
The Longhorns and the Cardinal have played five times, with Texas winning four of them including 60-53 last year in Las Vegas. Four of the five meetings have been on neutral courts.
–Field Level Media
