There are high expectations in Austin for the Longhorn’s men’s basketball team this season. The Longhorns, led by new coach Chris Beard, are ranked fifth in the Associated Press (AP) preseason top 25 rankings.
Texas will open the season on November 9 at home vs. Houston Baptist. They will follow that game up with a highly anticipated road trip on November 13 to play Gonzaga, the AP’s number one preseason ranked team.
Beard, who is a graduate of the University of Texas, was hired to replace Shaka Smart. The Longhorns decided to move on from Smart following a disappointing and unexpected loss to Abilene Christian in the first round of the national tournament last season.
Beard joins the Longhorns from rivals Texas Tech after a very successful five-year stint in Lubbock. After leading the Tech basketball program to heights it had never seen before, Beard is considered an elite-level coach.
First, he led the program to their first-ever Elite Eight appearance in 2018. He led them even farther the following year, to the national championship game, where the Red Raiders narrowly lost in overtime to Virginia.
Beard’s record as a head coach speaks for itself. He has averaged nearly 24 wins per season as a head coach, won two regular-season conference championships, and has twice been named the Big 12’s Coach of the Year.
With his record, it’s no wonder that Beard is highly confident that the Longhorns will find success under his leadership. In his opening press conference, Beard vowed to make the Longhorns a national title contender as quickly as possible.
On paper, it seems that Beard did not take long to fulfill that vow as the Longhorns are expected by many to compete for a national title this year. Over the offseason, the Longhorns added six of the nation’s top transfer players and a top freshman forward from Plano, Jaylon Tyson.
The new players join returning starters Andrew Jones and Courtney Ramey and key role players from last season, Brock Cunningham and Jase Febres.
The transfers include Minnesota point guard Marcus Carr, Utah All-Pac-12 forward Timmy Allen, UMass center Tre Mitchell, Vanderbilt power forward Dylan Disu, Creighton forward Christian Bishop, and Kentucky guard Devin Askew. Askew was rated as a five-star recruit coming out of high school in 2020.
Texas needed this mass infusion of fresh talent after losing one of the nation’s most talented frontcourts from last season. Sophomore Kai Jones, freshman Greg Brown III, and senior Jericho Sims were all selected in the summer’s NBA Draft.
Each of the transfers will play a vital role for the Longhorns this season, but Carr is expected to make the most significant impact. He averaged 19.4 points per game last season for Minnesota as a junior and picked Texas over a professional basketball opportunity in Australia.
Carr’s addition gives the Longhorns one of the most experienced backcourts in the country, along with Jones, a senior, and Ramey, a redshirt junior.
Chemistry is essential in basketball, so that could be a concern for the team with this many new players. Having coach Beard may ease those concerns as he has previously shown that he can succeed with transfer talent. He used transfers to help replace four starters from his 2018 Elite Eight team to reach the national title game in 2019.
Texas will have to compete with the defending champion Baylor Bears and always competitive Kansas Jayhawks in the Big 12, so winning the conference title will not be easy, especially for a first-year coach. However, Beard had instant success at Tech, and with the talent that he has amassed in Austin, fans of the Longhorns rightfully have very high expectations.