On a hypothetical list of men’s college basketball programs navigating a weird 2020s, Texas would have to be near the top.
Highlights? The Longhorns have had plenty, namely a run to the Elite Eight in 2023 as well a surprise 2026 trip to the Sweet 16 that punctuated a 15-loss season. Texas also grabbed a No. 3 national seed in 2021 and finished in the AP Top 10.
However: the Longhorns have churned through four coaches in six years, the `21 team bowed out in embarrassing fashion to Abilene Christian, and sledding in the SEC so far has been tough. Texas needed a morale boost.
On Thursday, it got one, as forward Marcus Spears Jr. reclassified to the Class of `26 and announced he’d play for the Longhorns this season.
Spears has a bold vision for Texas
The son of ex-LSU football All-American and ESPN NFL analyst Marcus Spears picked the Longhorns over Arizona, Kentucky and the Tigers.
“Texas basketball is becoming a big thing again, and I am excited to be part of it,” Spears Jr. told Paul Biancardi and Jeff Borzello of ESPN. “The Texas fans can expect a worker with a lot of energy. I will be trying to bring Texas a national championship.”
The signing is a massive one for the Longhorns, not least because Spears Jr. will have to wait two years before entering the NBA draft because of his young age (he’s just 17). Texas could realistically have just landed its power forward for the 2027 and 2028 seasons, despite Spears Jr.’s obvious one-and-done-caliber talent.
The two-part question that follows: are the Longhorns indeed “becoming a big thing again?” And if so, how can Spears facilitate that?
Miller seems to have restored a certain credibility to Texas
Under Rick Barnes—their coach from 1999 to 2015—the Longhorns were routinely NCAA tournament players and a destination for top recruits like forward Kevin Durant. That reputation atrophied a little bit once Texas canned Barnes: coach Shaka Smart never quite put all the pieces together, and neither of his successors (Chris Beard nor Rodney Terry) stuck around long enough to establish a firm recruiting foothold.
Miller, a master recruiter throughout his career by any means necessary, appears to be coaxing that reputation back to life. On the heels of his team’s Sweet 16 run, Miller has signed the No. 4 class in the country per 247Sports, trailing only Arkansas’s John Calipari, Duke’s Jon Scheyer and Kansas’s Bill Self.
Joining Spears next season—not counting transfers—will be five-star forward Austin Goosby, four-star guard Bo Ogden, and four-star guard Joe Sterling. Of that quartet, only Sterling didn’t play high school ball in Texas; Goosby and Spears were teammates on Dynamic Prep in the Dallas area.
Few teams will be more set at any one position in 2027 than Texas at power forward, thanks to Spears and David Punch
The Longhorns were busy in the transfer portal in the spring, and chief among their acquisitions was a true power forward in Punch. Punch stepped up his game in a big way in `26, averaging 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds per game for an NCAA tournament TCU team. Punch starting and Spears backing him up seems like a healthy way to ease a 17-year-old into the hot fire of SEC competition.
Texas is losing its obvious best player from a year ago—swingman Dailyn Swain, the 15th pick of June’s NBA draft by the Bulls—but returns promising Lithuanian center Matas Vokietaitis. Vokietaitis, who made the competition jump from Florida Atlantic to the Longhorns seamlessly, has the size to make life difficult for opponents regardless of whether he’s paired with Punch (six-foot-seven) or Spears Jr. (six-foot-nine).
Combine that level of star power with the pieces around them, and it’d be a surprise if Texas weren’t in the Sweet 16 come March `27.
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