Chris Beard inherited a team with 4 scholarship players that had never won an NCAA tournament game or had a 20 win regular season and had to fill out the rest of the roster with transfers and freshmen. Beard lost one of his best players in February. Beard still did the following in year 1: 1. Became the first Texas coach to win 21 games in the regular season since Rick Barnes in 2014; 2. Became the first Texas coach to win 22 or more games total since Rick Barnes in 2014; 3. Became the first Texas coach to win an NCAA Tournament game since Rick Barnes in 2014; 4. Beat Big XII Tournament champ and regular season co-champ Kansas, SEC Tournament Champ Tennessee and ACC Tournament Champ Virginia Tech! I am glad to finally have hope for Texas Basketball again thanks to Chris Beard! #That’sMyCoach
Yup! The fact that he created all of that out of thin air is really impressive. Next year could be rough. It’s hard to maintain momentum into the next season when you have 5 senior starters. But I’m really optimistic about the 2023-24 season.
Beard showed me that he is probably the first basketball coach ever at UT who can win a National Championship. If he has better players than you do, he will beat you 95/100 games. Now it remains to be seen if he can recruit a national championship squad, but I am hopeful/optimistic.
Got to hit the transfer portal. We have 3 commits right now and only Askew, Disu, and Cunningham coming back. A. Jones has another year of eligibility left, hope he uses it.
Kind of hoping Bishop uses his extra year too. D. Mitchell and Morris are going to be day-one starters, if not stars. So we have at least enough for a lineup next season. I don't know enough about Brumbaugh one way or the other... his clips seem pretty limited in what he can do. Wisconsin was really high on him before he committed to Northwestern, and he has that "look" of a B1G kid with the pace and shooting. Really, if we got three players on my wish list, it should be enough to be just as good as last year while we hit the reset button on recruiting and set the tone for the program as we move into Moody and start a new era: 1. A big body who can do enough to prevent disasters underneath, like last night. 2. A 3-point specialist who isn't asked to do much else. 3. A nuts-and-bolts guard to play glue guy. Someone with half the talent of Royal Ivey to play that position and guard the best opponent.
Update: Brock leaving. Texas G Brock Cunningham posts farewell message - Burnt Orange Nation Now we REALLY need my glue guy in the portal.
Beard is the right guy for the job and I am thrilled to have him at Texas. And I do agree that he has the recruiting ability and the skill set to take us all the way. However, looking objectively at this season and factoring in all of the portal talent he landed, to me, only one win in the tournament is a disappointment. Basically it suggests that Texas was only one of the best 32 teams in the country. Had this team made it to the Sweet 16, I would see it differently.
Basically, Beard won more NCAA tourney games in his first year than Smart did in his 5(?) years with less talent than Smart had. In his 1st recruiting year he has signed 2 5 stars and a commit from a 4 star. He needs to add some transfers for another good, hopefully better year. He came to Texas so he could recruit better than he could at TTU. It was not money. He had a no pressure job At TTU, but he wanted to win a natty.
Really sorry to see Brock "retire", but is it because he's headed to law school? Not many will remember that his dad narrowed his college choices to Texas for football and UCLA for basketball back when UCLA was a major force in basketball. I'll never forget Fred's call wanting my appearance in Austin to look at a document to determine if it was real. It was a six-figure annuity from Tommie Osborne trying to sway Edd's choice.
Big sigh of relief with Brock coming back. You can't have too many guys like that on the roster, especially given his size and propensity to "mess with" the opponent on the defensive end and dive for loose balls, etc. Couple of interesting Alabama forwards hit the portal yesterday. Either/both would be quite the haul. Donovan Williams is also in the portal. Would be interesting to see if he'd return to play for Beard.
Ramey will be the hardest to replace. If he was not the best 3 pt defender in the NCAA, it’s a very short list of his peers.
I would think Ramey would be a likely contender to use his extra year of eligibility. NBA teams should love him as a 3 and D player, but he was oddly snubbed by the Big 12 this year. Another year of defensive domination and maybe he gets his due and increases his exposure to NBA scouts.
I guess I must have missed how dominant he was this year. Seemed he couldnt hit a bucket if it was the size of the ocean and we needed that bad in most games. I guess he did play defense but I cant recall the last time I saw the NBA even make an attempt at D. I hope he moves on and we get some new players. Definitely need to be a taller team. Will hate losing Jones but 15 years on the team has to run out some time.
Unless he has a huge injection of attitude adjustment, can't see any "powers" taking him, and I think he will be bitterly disappointed in his draft status. Good luck, Young Man
Ramey wasn't recruited to be a stopper. I appreciate that he made that a part of his game over the last year, but we really needed him to step up on offense when the team was struggling on that end. He'll get picked up just like every other Shaka recruit did.
I'm thinking we need to shore up the low post with a big man from the portal or a recruit. Am I wrong on this? Someone please talk me off the ledge. 6' 11" or taller with some bulk would be nice.
Assuming he gets out of the draft before the deadline, Kendric Davis from SMU would be at the top of my list for guards. There aren't a ton of bigs available who would be used in a way we'd want them to (big bodies underneath who could prevent another Purdue disaster). Morehead had a guy who is making waves in the portal (Johni Broome). But I don't see him as an improvement over Tre Mitchell. We're probably better off going after guys who are like 6'7" or 6'8" like we had with Hamm and get them to just body up with people without needing much offense from them. I don't think Huntley from Tennessee would do well here. Manny Bates from NC State is tempting but I'm unaware of his health issues or why he was so apt to bolt this year. My favorite forward who I think we actually might have a shot at is Norchad Omier from Arkansas State. Stays down low on offense. Over a block per game. Shot 63% and didn't try to jack up 3's like Mitchell. He's not the biggest guy ever, but he makes up for that with effort.
