Texas basketball coach calls UCF classless for 'horns down' gesture after loss
Jan. 18 (UPI) -- Texas basketball coach Rodney Terry shouted at several Central Florida players for flashing 'horns down' gestures in the handshake line, mocking the Longhorns' celebratory hand signal after a Knights victory in Austin, Texas.
Terry skipped shaking hands with several coaches and players after being agitated by the move Wednesday at Moody Center. The Knights beat the Longhorns 77-71.
"That's classless," Terry repeated as he confronted Knights players. "Don't do that [expletive]."
Terry, who is in his second season as Longhorns coach, also addressed the incident at his postgame news conference.
"I always tell my guys, whether you win or lose, you win the right way, you lose the right way," Terry told reporters. "You carry yourself the right way.
"You don't go to the handshake line and have six or seven guys putting the horns down. We don't do that."
Terry said his players would "tip their caps" to the Knights for the victory, but he wasn't "going to let [them] act that way" in the Longhorns' home arena.
"Because when you do those kind of things it looks very classless and also looks like you were just hoping to win," Terry said. "We never go into games trying to hope to win.
"We go into games expecting to win. So we don't act like that. We expect to win. We don't jump up and down like we won the national championship. We sure don't step on anyone's home court and act crazy and try to show them up in any way."
Knights coach Johnny Dawkins told reporters at his postgame news conference that he wasn't aware of the postgame incident. He plans to address it once he reviews what occurred.
"That's not the type of program we run," Dawkins said. "So, if I see that, I will be addressing that personally, from my standpoint. ... We are all about having class as a program.
"So I will go back and review what happened. If there is any action that needs to be taken on my end, from our staff, I will do that."
Jaylin Sellers scored a game-high 24 points in the victory. Fellow Knights guards Shemarri Allen and Darius Johnson chipped in 17 and 11 points, respectively.
Ithiel Horton led the Longhorns with 20 points in the loss. Fellow guard Max Abmas and forward Dillon Mitchell chipped in 15 points apiece for the Longhorns.
The Longhorns (50.8%) and Knights (50%) shot nearly the same percentage from the floor, but a disparity in rebounding played a major factor. The Knights also made 12 of 15 free throw attempts, while the Longhorns sank 7 of 12 from the line.
The Knights held a 34-22 edge in points in the paint and 34-7 advantage in points off the bench. They also edged the Longhorns 15-5 in second-chance points.
The Longhorns led by as many as 16 points before allowing a Knights rally.
"It was a hard-fought game against a very good Texas team," Dawkins said. "I was really proud of our guys for their effort because Texas did a great job of building a lead. ... Our guys just kept fight and kept believing."
The Longhorns (12-5) will host No. 9 Baylor (14-4) at noon EST Saturday in Austin. The Knights (11-5) will face No. 5 Houston (15-2) at 2 p.m. Saturday in Houston.
