Scrimmage with St. Edward's a homecoming of sorts for Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry

Texas has played proud East Coast powers St. John’s and St. Joseph’s, each twice. The Longhorns have faced off with St. Francis from Loretto, Pa., and St. Mary’s of Moraga, Calif. Heck, they’ve even had a run against the Peacocks of St. Peter’s in Jersey City, N.J.

But on Monday at Moody Center, the Longhorns will finally in the modern era meet crosstown program St. Edward’s, a private school of about 2,700 students five miles south of the UT campus along South Congress Avenue. The teams haven't played since 1939, before St. Edward's formalized its team and joined a conference.

Technically, it’s only a free scrimmage and doesn’t go into the record books as an official game. But there’s nothing unofficial about the meeting for Texas head coach Rodney Terry, a 1990 graduate of St. Edward’s who still maintains ties with his alma mater as well as lots of his former classmates.

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“I have a lot of my lifelong friends from there who still live in Austin, and I'm sure a lot of them will be at the game on Monday,” said Terry, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration at St. Edward's. “And it’s just a great opportunity for our community to come out to support two really good institutions.”

Terry, a three-year starter in the backcourt and a three-time academic All-Big State Conference selection, joined the Hilltoppers after his prep playing days at Angleton, south of Houston. He helped them win the Big State title his freshman season in 1987 and served as team captain during his junior and senior campaigns before beginning his coaching career at his alma mater as an assistant to Tom Pate.

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“I got a great education over at St. Edward’s,” Terry said. “You know, it’s a private school, and there’s nowhere to hide. You're taking real classes, you got to produce the work, and you got to show how you got that work done. I got a very well-rounded education there.”

The hoops education wasn’t bad, either. Terry said the lessons he learned at St. Edward’s still carry over today, especially in maintaining the work ethic that helped him make an impact at the collegiate level as a young player.

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“Anytime you embark on a college career, it goes to another level in terms of the work you have to put in,” he said. “Everybody has been the best on their high school team. That's what kids find out when they get to college. And you have to continue to get better each and every year.

“I know myself as a young player going in, I played with an older team and had to learn how to play with older guys. And I gained valuable experience in that regard. Coach Pate really instilled in us about how hard you had to work every single day (because) nothing was going to be given to you. You had to earn everything that you got.”

Terry has given back to St. Edward’s, too. He occasionally speaks there, and he hopes the scrimmage can help raise the profile of the Hilltoppers' program as well as offer a stern test for his squad a week ahead of the season opener against Incarnate Word on Nov. 6.

"This is a great opportunity for our program, and it is all because of Rodney Terry,” St. Edward’s coach Andre Cook said in September, when the schools announced the scrimmage. “The Hilltop is so proud of him, and we can't thank him enough. Our guys are looking forward to playing at Moody and having a terrific experience."

While Terry likes helping St. Edward’s, he knows the scrimmage will help his players, too.

“Coach Cook has done a great job building a really good program there,” Terry said. “They will test us, because they can really shoot the basketball. They will test us with back cuts really hard. We have to do a great job of really trying to protect the paint and have some discipline about ourselves defensively because they're really good offensively in everything, so it'd be a great test for us.”

Monday's scrimmage

St. Edward's at Texas, 7 p.m., Moody Center, LHN, free admission

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas coach Rodney Terry to host St. Edward's in basketball scrimmage