I still don’t understand how we didn’t sign a point-guard, other than Jacob Young-who hasn't totally worked out at that position. My best analysis is as follows:
We get 13 scholarships. We have 14 guys on the team and I don’t think Joe
Schwartz, Ryan McClurg, or Isaiah Hobbs are scholarship players.
Here is the best I can do with the sequence of events at Texas:
Date Player Position Event
09/29/15 Any Walk-on Tryouts
11/11/15 Any Basketball LOI signing (Early)
11/11/15 James Banks C Signed LOI
11/11/15 Jacob Young G Signed LOI
04/12/16 Dylan Osetkowski PF Transfers to Texas, Eligible Fall 2017
04/13/16 Andrew Jones G Signed LOI
04/13/16 Any Basketball LOI signing (Late)
04/21/16 Isaiah Taylor PG Hired agent, ineligible
06/04/16 Jarrett Allen C Signs scholarship papers
06/06/16 Mareik Isom F Transfers to Texas
09/29/16 Any Walk-on Tryouts
10/16/16 Isaiah Hobbs G Walk-on. Graduate Transfer
I also collected some data on the 2016 Top Texas Basketball Recruits as of 09/15/15 as per http://247sports.com as to point guards Texas was recruiting (in order of rankings):
Date Player Position Event
11/11/15 De'Aaron Fox PG Signs with Kentucky
11/11/15 J.J. Caldwell PG Signs with Texas A&M, Ruled ineligible 09/16/16.
11/11/15 Jacob Young PG Signed with Texas
11/11/15 Carsen Edwards PG Signed with Purdue
11/11/15 Brandon Averette PG Signed with Stephen F. Austin who released him when Brad Underwood went from Stephen F. Austin HC to OSU HC. He followed Brad to OSU, signing a new LOI at OSU in April 2016.
The best I can figure, all of the PGs we were interested in signed LOIs on 11/11/15 and at that time Shaka was still hoping Isaiah Taylor would stay another year. Still he knew he had a bunch of scholarships to give.
It doesn't appear that we ever had much hope of getting De'Aaron Fox away from Kentucky. He was also recruited by Kansas, Arizona, Louisville, and many others.
Similarly it doesn't appear J.J. Caldwell was interested in Texas and he wouldn't have been a solution because he was later ruled ineligible.
Carsen Edwards was from Humble, TX (Atascocita), so he might have been interested in staying in Texas. Texas was never near the top of his list, so I don't know we were really in it with him. He has been very successful at Purdue averaging 22.6 minutes, 11.3 points, and 2.1 assists per game.
Brandon Averette apparently hitched his wagon pretty hard to Brad Underwood, 1st at Stephen F. Austin, then following him to OSU. He played HS at Richardson (Richardson, TX), He has been reasonably successful at OSU averaging 15.3 minutes, 7.6 points and 1.8 assists per game. Would he have come to Texas instead of Stephen F. Austin if Texas had made a big play for him?
Maybe we should have recruited more broadly and even deeper.
(Sorry for my inability to keep the columns straight because no tabs are allowed and the imports from Excel lost the columns and borders.)
Last edited: Dec 29, 2016