Austin, TX
Texas basketball: How Jayson Kent is helping the Longhorns make an NCAA Tournament push
Fittingly, Jayson Kent is finally starting to look at home on the court for Texas basketball.
And it couldn’t come at a better time for the Longhorns and Kent, an Austin native who transferred back to his childhood home in the offseason after spending the previous two years at Indiana State.
Over the past two games, Kent, a 6-foot-8 graduate student, has gotten the start for a banged-up Texas squad. He scored a season-high 19 points in a then season-high 25 minutes in a Feb. 11 103-80 loss to Alabama. The points outburst seemed to give Kent a confidence boost when the Longhorns needed it most Saturday against No. 21 Kentucky; in a crucial 82-78 win that boosted the Longhorns’ NCAA Tournament hopes, he played 29 minutes with six points, a season-high eight rebounds and plenty of big plays that don’t get tracked by stats.
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Banging on the boards proved especially critical for a Texas team playing without leading rebounder Arthur Kaluma, whom Kent has temporarily replaced in the starting lineup. The Longhorns have struggled to match up with the long, physical frontcourts found throughout the SEC, and Kent helped Texas edge the Wildcats 41-40 on the glass.
“Obviously, people look at the scoring, but I always look at other things that he does that impact winning,” coach Rodney Terry said. “He’s rebounding the basketball for us, giving us second-chance opportunities. Trying to (have) a guy that can defend these physical forwards in this league has also been a challenge. It’s something that we needed him to do for us.”
Jayson Kent: Smaller role, larger stage in SEC
Serving as a role player wasn’t something Kent did last season with Indiana State when he averaged 13.5 points and 8.1 rebounds in 30.3 minutes a game as a starter. But the fifth-year player knew this season he’d play a lesser role in a much bigger league than Indiana State’s Missouri Valley Conference.
Kent said he came to Texas to pursue a graduate certification in communication and leadership from UT’s School of Communications while testing himself in the SEC and helping the Longhorns reach the NCAA Tournament.
“It’s just understanding what the team needs,” Kent said. “We have a lot of highly skilled guys on the team, and we all want to be successful. But, for me personally, I’m adjusting to this different role of just finding ways to impact winning, to help the team benefit. Whatever my minutes are, I’m going to do what I can in those minutes to leave an impact.”
Kent didn’t make much of an impact early in the season. He averaged a little over six points and three rebounds in 19 minutes a game in the first three contests of the campaign before suffering a wrist injury that sidelined him for eight games. By the time Kent returned to the court for the final nonconference game Dec. 29 against Northwestern State, Terry said Kent needed to adapt from a role he had carved out in the preseason as a big who could step out to the 3-point line.
“It was tough for him, and it was tough for us,” Terry said. “We had already been playing, and now he’s got to try to etch out his identity of who he really needs to be for us. It may not be the same that it was going to be to start the season. Maybe we didn’t need him to stretch the floor for us now. Now, we need him to be more of a flow guy for us.”
Rodney Terry: Coach’s kids ‘cerebral’ players
But things have been flowing for Kent over the past two games as Texas (16-10, 5-8 SEC) makes a push for an NCAA bid. Kent has never played in the NCAA Tournament during his previous stops at Indiana State and Bradley; ending his collegiate career with a March Madness appearance would be a fitting end considering his start.
Kent was born in Austin in 2002, when his father, Jason Kent, served as the head basketball coach at Huston-Tillotson University in East Austin and his mother, Anna Kent, worked in the University of Texas athletics department. The family moved to the Chicago area in 2004 when Jason Kent took a job as Chicago State’s head coach.
And why the same name but a different spelling from his dad?
“My dad wanted a junior, but my mom didn’t, so they compromised,” Jayson Kent said with a laugh.
Basketball runs deep in Kent’s family. Both parents played collegiate basketball, with Jason suiting up at Ohio and Charleston while Anna competed at West Virginia. His sister, Janae, was a highly touted youth player who signed with LSU before transferring to Texas A&M this season.
Terry, himself the son of a coach, knew Jason Kent while he coached at Huston-Tillotson. And even before Jayson Kent returned to Austin, Terry anticipated what type of player the Longhorns were getting in a coach’s son.
“They always think like a coach, they always have a cerebral understanding of the game, because they’ve been around the game their whole lives,” he said. “It’s just instinctive; if you’re sitting there watching the game with your dad, you’re looking at the game through a different lens that maybe a kid that doesn’t have a dad that’s a coach. So, I think there definitely are characteristics of being a coach’s son, just having a great feel for the game. Jason has that cerebral feel for the game and understanding of how to play defensively, cut offensively and space on the floor.”
Saturday’s game
Texas at South Carolina, 7:30 p.m., SEC Network, 1300, 98.1
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Austin, TX
Appeals court rules Texas can require public schools to display Ten Commandments in class
DALLAS (AP) — Texas can require the Ten Commandments to be displayed in public school classrooms, a U.S. appeals court ruled Tuesday in a victory for conservatives who have long sought to incorporate more religion into schools.
WATCH: Texas school board approves new course material that includes Bible passages
It sets up a potential clash at the U.S. Supreme Court over the issue in the future.
The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals said in the decision that the law did not violate the First Amendment, which protects religious freedom and prevents the government from establishing a religion.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, called the ruling “a major victory for Texas and our moral values.”
“The Ten Commandments have had a profound impact on our nation, and it’s important that students learn from them every single day,” Paxton said.
Organizations representing the families who challenged the law, including the American Civil Liberties Union, said in a statement that they were “extremely disappointed” by the decision.
“The court’s ruling goes against fundamental First Amendment principles and binding U.S. Supreme Court authority. The First Amendment safeguards the separation of church and state, and the freedom of families to choose how, when and if to provide their children with religious instruction. This decision tramples those rights,” the statement said.
The law is among the pushes by Republicans, including President Donald Trump, to incorporate religion into public schools. Critics say it violates the separation of church and state while backers argue that the Ten Commandments are historical and part of the foundation of U.S. law.
The ruling, which reverses a district court’s judgment, comes after the full court heard arguments in January in the Texas case and a similar case in Louisiana. The appeals court in February cleared the way for Louisiana’s law, requiring displays of the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms. The 5th Circuit Court of Appeals voted 12-6 to lift a block that a lower court first placed on the law in 2024.
Texas law took effect on Sept. 1, marking the largest attempt in the nation to hang the Ten Commandments in public schools. About two dozen school districts had been barred from posting them after federal judges issued injunctions in two cases against the law but went up in many classrooms across the state as districts paid to have the posters printed themselves or accepted donations.
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Waymo self-driving car navigating city traffic, San Francisco, California, August 20, 2024. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)
AUSTIN, Texas – The Texas Department of Motor Vehicles is launching a new authorization system for companies looking to operate automated motor vehicles.
A new goes into effect next month that requires companies using automated vehicles to be authorized by TxDMV with the following requirements:
- Complies with all applicable Texas traffic and motor vehicle laws
- Is equipped with a recording device
- Uses an automated driving system that complies with federal law
- Can achieve minimal risk condition in the event of a system failure
- Has a proper title and registration
- Maintains motor vehicle insurance
The process allows companies to submit their applications online through the Texas Motor Carrier Credentialing System.
The new laws outlined in Senate Bill 2807 go into effect on May 28.
Automated vehicles in Texas
The backstory:
Autonomous driving services are already operating in major Texas cities. Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio are all serviced by the driverless ride-share company Waymo.
In Austin, the service has received dozens of complaints about vehicles stalling, speeding and crashing.
There have also been complaints of vehicles illegally passing school buses.
In March, Swedish company Einride announced plans to bring autonomous freight trucks to Central Texas.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles and previous FOX Local reporting.
AUSTIN, Texas – A man was charged with intoxication manslaughter after a crash in East Austin.
The backstory:
According to an arrest affidavit, on April 17, around 1:31 a.m., officers responded to a crash in the 2800 block of East Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
An investigation revealed the driver, Jalen Carter, 32, was driving a 2026 white Nissan at an estimated speed of 100 mph in a 45 mph zone. The car “bottomed out” at a train crossing and lost control. The car then hit a utility pole, hit a bus station, and five parked cars before finally coming to a stop.
A passenger in the car, Carter’s mother, suffered a serious hand injury.
One witness told an officer that Carter had been smoking marijuana about 30 minutes before driving and was acting “abnormal and paranoid.” An officer described Carter’s eyes as bloodshot and glassy.
An officer said he also “exhibited cyclic behavior” and was alternating between grabbing his mother and falling unconscious.
When officers tried talking to Carter, they said he was uncooperative and combative. They also said he ignored verbal commands and had to be removed from his mother.
Carter and his mother were taken to a local hospital. His mother lost her thumb and required emergency surgery.
At the hospital, Cater was so aggressive that it took about 10 people, including four security guards, to hold him down. He was eventually sedated and intubated.
Carter was later charged with intoxication assault.
The Source: Information from an arrest affidavit
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