The “Horns Down” gesture made by UCF players infuriated Longhorns coach Rodney Terry.
Over the years, the NCAA basketball handshake line has resulted in some tense scenes. On Wednesday night, one such instance occurred.
In a thrilling comeback game, the UCF Knights defeated the Texas Longhorns 77-71 at the Moody Center in Austin, Texas. Some UCF players celebrated the triumph with an inverted version of Texas’ “Hook ’em Horns” signal—the “Horns Down”—after the final buzzer.
However, Texas head coach Rodney Terry informed the Longhorns that he didn’t like the Knights’ teasing of them.
Terry was seen yelling at multiple UCF players in a footage from the local station KVUE while the two teams went through the handshake line.
Terry shouted, “That’s classless!” several times.
He said, “Don’t do that s***,” once.
After an interim tenure as Texas’ head coach the previous season, Terry is in his first full season as the team’s coach. Terry later gave an explanation for his disapproval of the celebration.
“I always tell my guys, whether you win or lose, you win the right way, you lose the right way, you carry yourself the right way,” Terry stated to reporters. “You don’t walk past the line for the handshake or have folks put their horns down before you even reach it. That is not what we do.
“When you act in such a crude manner, it appears as though you were only trying to win. We never enter a game expecting to win; instead, we enter it hoping to win.
Thus, that is not how we behave. We don’t celebrate as though we’ve won a national title. We certainly don’t invade someone’s privacy or attempt to confront them in any manner. That is not what we do.
“So that’s what was upsetting me, and I told those guys not to do that.” We shake hands, you men prevailed, and I tip my hat to you.
However, we won’t tolerate your behavior in our building. You won’t do all that foolishness and put down your horns.”
While Johnny Dawkins, the head coach of UCF, stated that he did not witness his players making the gesture, he still intended to investigate the matter.
“That’s not the type of program we run, so if I see that I will be addressing that personally,” Dawkins stated. “I have a great deal of respect for Coach Terry and his program; I know him to be a fantastic man. Since our entire purpose is to use the class as a program, I’ll go back and examine what transpired and take any necessary action on my end.”
The “Horns Down” sign was frequently used by Texas’s rivals to make fun of the Longhorns.
The Big 12 has occasionally regarded the signal as an unsportsmanlike behavior penalty in football.
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