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Texas Basketball 2022-23


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Via FCB

Talked to a team source who thinks the Longhorns' leading scorers in 2021-22 — forward Timmy Allen and guard Marcus Carr — are leaning toward returning to Texas while junior forward Tre Mitchell will likely be moving on.

Allen and Carr are both eligible for a COVID-19 redshirt season in 2022-23. While the source said they wouldn’t place a wager either way right now on the decisions of Allen and Carr, the source said both players are staying in very close contact with coach Chris Beard and their Longhorn teammates.

“Let’s just say they’re not acting like guys who’ve made up their minds to leave,” the source said. “I could be dead wrong, but I think they stay.”

As far as Mitchell, the junior big man endured a lot of personal strife that caused him to leave the team in February with six regular-season games remaining, including a family member diagnosed with cancer.

The source said Mitchell, who used the one-time transfer rule to go from UMass to Texas, will probably transfer again (and have to sit out a year) to be closer to home (in the northeast - he grew up in Pittsburgh and played high school ball in Connecticut).

Senior guard Courtney Ramey, who is also eligible for a COVID-19 redshirt season, has declared for the NBA Draft without hiring an agent while also entering the transfer portal “to explore all options.”

Ramey, a native of St. Louis, is getting a lot of attention from Illinois, a school he considered out of high school.

Returning for Texas next season so far are forwards Christian Bishop, Brock Cunningham and Dylan Disu as well as guard Devin Askew in addition to incoming freshmen — five-star guard Arterio Morris (6-foot-3, 190 pounds), five-star small forward Dillon Mitchell (6-foot-7, 200 pounds) and four-star guard Rowan Brumbaugh (6-foot-4, 180 pounds), who signed his letter of intent Wednesday.

As I reported in The Brew on Wednesday, one team source said Texas fans are going to love Brumbaugh “because the kid has savvy, swagger and skill.”

23COMMENTS

When I asked the source which of the incoming freshmen is most college-ready right now, the source said, “Mitchell. His athleticism is off the chart.”

The source said Beard would probably be looking in the transfer portal “for a guard with speed who can get by people and break down defenses.”

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2 minutes ago, shadow_operative said:

he has. assuming that his transfer is about moving up to a better program and not some beef with Rob Lanier, it's feasible that Texas (and Tennessee) could be in a good spot to land him. 

Pretty sure it's because Jank left. NIL is also a thing now - he could just be taking bids. 

I seriously, seriously doubt he lands at Texas. Just giving an example of a guard that can break down defenses that Beard is interested in. 

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13 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

Via FCB

Talked to a team source who thinks the Longhorns' leading scorers in 2021-22 — forward Timmy Allen and guard Marcus Carr — are leaning toward returning to Texas while junior forward Tre Mitchell will likely be moving on.

Allen and Carr are both eligible for a COVID-19 redshirt season in 2022-23. While the source said they wouldn’t place a wager either way right now on the decisions of Allen and Carr, the source said both players are staying in very close contact with coach Chris Beard and their Longhorn teammates.

“Let’s just say they’re not acting like guys who’ve made up their minds to leave,” the source said. “I could be dead wrong, but I think they stay.”

As far as Mitchell, the junior big man endured a lot of personal strife that caused him to leave the team in February with six regular-season games remaining, including a family member diagnosed with cancer.

 

I see the bolded finally made it to print.  Mitchell took a lot of unfair shots in various threads about his decision to leave the team.  

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8 minutes ago, someguy said:

I see the bolded finally made it to print.  Mitchell took a lot of unfair shots in various threads about his decision to leave the team.  

Meh. He quit the team in the middle of conference play. He's going to get shit for it. Sounds like he has some personal mental health issues with family cancer tacked on top. 

Even before he quit I was questioning where his head was. 

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24 minutes ago, someguy said:

I see the bolded finally made it to print.  Mitchell took a lot of unfair shots in various threads about his decision to leave the team.  

yeah, bullshit. he did not leave the team because a family member got cancer, and frankly his using that as an excuse is downright shitty. 

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he's not an oncologist; he didn't quit the team because a family member got cancer; he quit the team *and* some random member of his extended family got cancer, and all of a sudden it's being used an excuse for why he left, when we know that he left because h has a shady history with handlers and because his dad hates chris beard. using his family member's cancer diagnosis for his own gain is fucking foul. 

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Surprise but welcome rumor that Carr and Allen might come back.

What’s the latest on Jones and Benson coming back?  This looks pretty god damned stacked to me:

G Carr/Askew/Brumbaugh 

G Jones?/A Morris/Perryman

G D Mitchell/Benson?/Bott

F Allen/Cunningham/TBD transfer

F Bishop/Disu/TBD walk-on

 

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12 hours ago, shadow_operative said:

he's not an oncologist; he didn't quit the team because a family member got cancer; he quit the team *and* some random member of his extended family got cancer, and all of a sudden it's being used an excuse for why he left, when we know that he left because h has a shady history with handlers and because his dad hates chris beard. using his family member's cancer diagnosis for his own gain is fucking foul. 

Hesitant rep as I do think he has some mental health stuff (not that it seemed like it was anything that kept him from playing) and it's possible there's some stuff going on that we don't know about - but rep nonetheless as this is pretty much how I see it as well. It's the old "grandmother's funeral" note to skip school. I don't think it's a great excuse unless it's an immediate family member that's on their death bed or some such. You don't put your life on hold just because some family member gets sick. It happens to literally everyone - my mom's mom has pretty a rare, rapidly progressing dementia that's been going on for a couple years but was just recently properly diagnosed and then less than a year ago her younger brother got diagnosed with cancer and was in treatment for a fairly long stretch (thankfully he's probably going to be just fine) and it was tough on her but she didn't quit her job or become an absent mother to my younger sister. Shit happens to everyone and you just have to take it in stride and do the best you can. 

MAYBE Tre has some serious issues with depression or anxiety and then a favorite aunt or cousin got a really bad cancer diagnosis and it took him over the top - but there's too much shit about his dad and his history with coaches for me to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Also - dude could have come out and made a statement about why he quit but he didn't. He quit, watched his team struggle with certain lineups down the stretch, then a month after Texas' season was over leaks that someone got cancer. Like... c'mon man. You have a teammate that was out there busting his ass that's a recent cancer survivor. Could you imagine if an NBA star found out their mom or dad was sick and then just quit for the rest of the season or playoffs? 

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Chris Beard has been pretty adamant that Tre didn't cross any line.  Obviously he has to be circumspect to some degree, but nothing he has said ever made me think Tre was persona non grata going forward.  I suggest people wait and see.

(I'm not disputing some of the helicopter dad shit, I don't know well enough either way, I assume people are making those claims in good faith.)

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12 hours ago, Snake Diggity said:

Surprise but welcome rumor that Carr and Allen might come back.

What’s the latest on Jones and Benson coming back?  This looks pretty god damned stacked to me:

G Carr/Askew/Brumbaugh 

G Jones?/A Morris/Perryman

G D Mitchell/Benson?/Bott

F Allen/Cunningham/TBD transfer

F Bishop/Disu/TBD walk-on

 

that starting 5 is a little too similar to last years squad for my liking. We had some serious issues last year on the offensive side of the ball, and I'm not sure I care to watch a repeat. Obviously a lot of unknowns at this point. 

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Morris
Carr
Mitchell
Allen
Disu or Bishop or Transfer 
 
i like that starting five. it's a lot better than this year's team. lot more athletic too, particularly if Disu is in there. 

Give me two 6’8”+ guys who can rebound /defend the paint and SG in the portal with those guys, Cunningham and askew and we’d be better for sure.


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3 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

Didn't work.

You have to type in the actual address for the article. What pops up is the hookem.com restricted access website.

Spoiler
1d16ad66-fec4-49f7-941b-85f31182f23c-BDaBrian Davis
Austin American-Statesman
 
 

It’s been a month since Texas coach Chris Beard left Milwaukee, and while he’s capable of reflection, he’s already barreling down the road ahead. The only problem? It’s extremely foggy.

To be a college basketball coach today means you must be comfortable with uncertainty.

Who will be on next season’s roster? Well, it’s hard to say here in April. As of today, only five players are officially locked in for the 2022-23 season, and three of those will be freshmen.

“I would stay and chat but I’ve got to go to class!” UT forward Brock Cunningham shouted as he hustled down the hallway at Cooley Pavilion on Wednesday. Yes, Cunningham will be back, even though a confusing post-Purdue tweet indicated otherwise. 

Dylan Disu? Devin Askew? Both were seen in the practice facility. “I know it sounds kind of crazy, but I just don’t want to speak for those guys,” Beard said. 

 

When will Texas start landing some recruits out of the transfer portal? Well, good luck figuring that out, too. 

Everyone appears to be slow-playing it and waiting for NBA evaluations. But the last day players can jump into the transfer portal is May 1. The last day for decision-making comes June 1.

Who will Texas play in the first game inside the swanky new Moody Center? That’s an easy one. The Longhorns will host UTEP in the season opener Nov. 7 in the new arena, which will have its official ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday. Gonzaga will come to the Moody Center on Nov. 16.

 

Who is Beard going to hire as his new assistant coach now that Ulric Maligi has left for Kansas State? There’s no rush on that, either. The staff already has a fully functional “war room” to tackle evaluations and recruiting.

 

Beard can often be found pacing around the Erwin Center loading dock area, which doubles as the coaches’ parking lot. Fresh air does him good while he works the phone, even when the temperatures climb above 90 degrees these days.

Getting Beard to stop and reflect isn’t easy. In his first season at Texas, Beard’s club finished 22-12 overall and 10-8 in Big 12 play. The program’s long NCAA Tournament nightmare is over. Texas won its first game since 2014 and then got knocked out in the second round by Purdue.

 

Texas was competitive again, fan interest is up, and there’s real optimism about the program’s future. That qualifies as a success, right?

“I don’t hang fourth-place posters up in here,” Beard said while sitting in the UT coaches’ lounge. “But I can tell you this, man. You finish in the top four in the Big 12 year after year, you’re going to be in that conversation where you are one of those handful of teams. Your margin for error wasn’t very good, but you were right there.

“So I’m just proud of the guys,” he continued. “And I think with all teams, we overcame some stuff, some COVID, some sickness, roster changes, and that’s going to be no different than anybody else. You know, every year in college basketball, something’s going to happen.”

 

Texas beat No. 18 Tennessee at home, spoiling former Longhorns coach Rick Barnes’ return to Austin. There also was a dramatic home win over No. 8 Kansas. On the flip side, the Horns no-showed in a loss in Waco and couldn’t make enough shots down the stretch at home against Baylor and then at Kansas.

 

Beard admitted “we got popped” by TCU in the Big 12 Tournament, but he also called the Horned Frogs “a pretty damn good team.” Texas kept battling, beat red-hot ACC Tournament champ Virginia Tech in the NCAAs and had a chance to beat Purdue despite an eye-popping number of fouls.

“I just think I’ll always have fond memories of these guys because they just kept fighting, man,” Beard said. “We had some adversity, but we kept scrapping. I thought they represented the school really well.”

 

Rebuilding the roster

When the season ended, it was known that only two players could not return — super seniors Jase Febres and Tristen Licon. Both used their extra COVID-19 year of eligibility last season. Everyone else has the option to return for the 2022-23 season. But some won’t.

So let’s start with the upperclassmen.

Senior guard Courtney Ramey (9.4 points per game) announced earlier this month that he would go through the NBA draft process and put his name in the transfer portal. Few inside the program believe senior guard Andrew Jones (11.2 ppg) will return for what would be a seventh season. 

Senior forward Timmy Allen, UT’s leading scorer (12.1 ppg) and rebounder (6.4 rpg), has kept quiet. It’s obvious he’s weighing all options. So is senior guard Marcus Carr (11.4 ppg).

 

Senior forward Christian Bishop (7.0 ppg, 5.6 rpg) wasted little time announcing he would return. So did fan favorite Cunningham (2.3 ppg, 2.3 rpg).

Golden: Chris Beard's blueprint in new college basketball landscape will succeed at Texas

Disu (3.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg) could benefit from a full offseason. The junior missed the entire offseason last year after recovering from knee surgery. The training staff was extra cautious before clearing him to play.

Askew (2.1 ppg, 1.3 apg) looked scared to shoot for most of the season but started pulling the trigger around late February. The sophomore’s defense also got noticeably better as Big 12 play wore on. 

Senior reserve Avery Benson, the Texas Tech transfer who helped Beard install his culture in Austin, is also expected to move on.

Junior forward Tre Mitchell, who left the team in mid-February for personal reasons, is not expected to return. It’s still unclear where he’s headed next. Mitchell has never spoken publicly about his decision to leave UT and did not return messages left by the American-Statesman.

 

The Horns are adding two McDonald’s All-Americans, 6-foot-3 guard Arterio Morris and 6-7 forward Dillon Mitchell, along with 6-4 guard Rowan Brumbaugh.

Pouring over the transfer portal

Fans must understand this is the new normal, Beard explained. The days of watching one player for three or four years in the same program are over. Now it’s not uncommon to see players transfer two or three times before they're done. 

The transfer portal works both ways, too. Beard and his staff must go through hundreds of names and see who might fit. It truly is a form of college basketball free agency.

“I do know this: We’re going to compete,” Beard said. “We're going to have an unselfish culture. We’re not going to treat our best player any different than we treat our freshmen. We’re going to play defense. No, we’re not changing on those things.”

And Beard isn’t changing his demanding ways.

“I think we have as good a relationship with our players,” Beard said. “I mean, do we coach hard? Yeah, if a guy misses a block-out in the game, I’m not going to go out there and hug him. I think that’s people's perception.”

 

Last season, Beard dove headfirst into the portal because he had to build a roster almost from scratch. This season, the staff can better evaluate players because they’re not in total scramble mode.

“The information changes by the minute. It’s not even by the day. It’s by the minute,” Beard said of the transfer portal database. “Once we get the notification that players are in there, then we just have an internal structure kind of organized.”

 

Beard’s recruiting process is rather simple. When he gets players on the phone, Beard asks directly whether they are “open to being recruited by us.” If the answer is yes, then Beard just listens because “they’ll tell you what they’re looking for.” If not, then the Horns move on.

Many of the top players in the portal are still narrowing their choices, so it’s difficult to pinpoint whether Texas can get this player or that one. 

For example, Utah Valley center Fardaws Aimaq (6-11, 18.9 ppg) announced UT was among his five finalists. He’s considered the No. 1 transfer currently on the market but might go pro based on his NBA evaluations.

Again, it’s all uncertain. The timeline is critical.

April 24 is the last day underclassmen can declare for the NBA draft. The last day an NCAA athlete can put his name in the transfer portal and move before next season is May 1 for fall and winter sports.

The NBA scouting combine is May 16-22 in Chicago. Underclassmen who wish to withdraw their name from the draft have until June 1. 

Fans buying into these Longhorns

Beard’s cattle-prod approach toward the Texas fan base worked. He jolted fans with direct appeals and reached out to students in ways previous coaches haven’t done in years. 

Attendance was woeful at times under former coach Shaka Smart. Opposing teams knew the Erwin Center wouldn’t be a difficult venue. 

The school hired Lauren Pinter, a marketing coordinator at Florida, to focus solely on men’s basketball. “She did a great job, as did other people with Lauren,” Beard said. “But you’ve got to recognize that hiring Lauren and this happens. Denying that wouldn’t be accurate. Lauren did a great job.”

Free food lured the students initially — as it always does. Random spot checks on season ticket holders held older fans more accountable. And there was specific communication from Beard that if you can’t make the game, make sure someone is sitting in your seats.

 

“I think our players did a great job,” Beard said. “Our players posted things on social media all year. Our players went to functions around campus. Our players were engaged. They got into it.”

The student section, which held 1,200 seats in the lower bowl, was filling up long before tipoff. If you weren’t there early, you probably sat up high or in the upper deck. 

“It was just a huge victory for the students,” Beard said. “We had students getting in line camping out. Hey, man, we nailed it. Not only did they come; I thought they started impacting the game. They were loud. They were with us.”

There were subtle tweaks, too. Texas shifted some nonconference game times to 7:30 p.m. instead of 7 to allow more time to fight traffic. Beard invited students onto the floor after certain games for a “family picture” just to force more involvement.

By midseason, the number of fans and their excitement level had grown noticeably. Texas finished with an average announced attendance of 12,398 for 19 home games. Erwin Center capacity was 16,540.

“I wouldn’t say this is one of my favorite venues,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after losing to Texas in Austin on Feb. 7. “But I will say this about tonight. It’s probably as good a crowd as we’ve had when we played here. I thought the crowd was really good.”

There were hiccups. Beard announced a mimosa promotion for New Year’s Day. But fans were stunned to learn you had to pre-purchase that specific ticket online. You couldn’t buy a mimosa promotion ticket just by walking up to the ticket window on game day.

Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte and his ticket operations team should be embarrassed at how Texas Tech fans figured out UT’s archaic system and overtook the arena on Feb. 19. Roughly 6,000 Tech fans gobbled up tickets, mostly just to heckle Beard. 

It was so bad, UT halted ticket sales out of fear it would be even worse.

“Everybody's heart is in the right place,” Beard said, rather diplomatically. “Everybody’s trying to help. We’ve just got to keep moving the needle.”

Moving into Moody, practice facility

Next season, Texas will move into the new $338 million Moody Center, just north of the Erwin Center. 

Seating capacity for men’s and women’s basketball is expected to be about 10,000. The upper deck will be closed off to create a more intimate setting. 

Men’s basketball season tickets range from $500 to $8,500. Some fans are apoplectic that their football tickets no longer give them priority for basketball seating. The school has separated the two sports within UT’s internal priority points system. UT is planning a pick-your-seat event for season ticket holders sometime in May.

Students are the biggest winners at Moody, no question. They will have three-fourths of the seating closest to the court. 

“I believe this: I think the people that maybe move up a few rows, it’s not going to be as bad as they think because of the way that thing is shaped,” Beard said of Moody Center. “People are going to have really good seats even if the students don’t sit down one time, which I hope they don’t.”

In addition to hosting UTEP and Gonzaga next season, UT will have a Big East opponent at home and an SEC opponent on the road. The Horns are scheduled to play in the Jimmy V Classic in New York, and Beard wouldn’t mind playing Duke if that could work out. Texas will host another game at Gregory Gym next season, too.

The Horns are also finalizing another game against a Pac-12 opponent to be played in Dallas, probably at American Airlines Center. It would be the return game of last year’s Pac-12 event against Stanford held in Las Vegas.

When last season’s schedule was being assembled, Beard had no clue how the roster would shape up. “If I had known we would’ve had this veteran team that we had last year, we would have played a couple of those Gonzaga-type games,” Beard said.

The Horns are more focused on moving into the new basketball and rowing practice facility this summer. The building sits adjacent to Moody Center, tucked in on the south side of Royal-Memorial Stadium. 

The Erwin Center and Cooley Pavilion will be dismantled to make way for UT Dell Medical School expansion.

Texas will have a new team going into a new arena and a new practice facility, plus a new conference in 2025, if not sooner. In Beard’s mind, season two is already well underway.

“We’re all about getting better,” he said.

Contact Brian Davis by phone or text at 512-445-3957. Email bdavis@statesman.com or follow on Twitter via @BDavisAAS.

 

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2 minutes ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Really don't like where the portal era is headed.

What made you think it was headed some place good? It’s good for the student athletes on the face of it, because they’re not locked into one location with a lot of punitive consequences if they change their mind. Also, NIL is obviously great for student athletes on the face of it. 

But combine the two, along with the lack of any kind of feasible regulatory oversight any time in the near future, and it’s basically the Wild West. It’s pro sports without a collective bargaining agreement. Everyone is a free agent. 

About the only thing I foresee ending this phase of college sports is another big realignment where the power schools leave the NCAA and take the tournament with them to write their own rules for college sports, which is where we’re headed. Not saying other conferences wouldn’t be invited to the new power school tournament, but it would be run by a new consortium. 

The main thing is to be the fish eating the smaller fish. 

This brave new world should be a godsend for Texas. But it’s not good for college sports in my mind. I need to finish this post because I have some hooligans on my front lawn I need to tell off. 

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1 hour ago, Braff Zacklin said:

Really don't like where the portal era is headed.

It's not ideal for us fans, but like @SL Xpress said, it's pretty good for the players and that's really what should matter in my book. The entire landscape was going to change once the student athletes gained at least some of the self-determination they always should have had. We'll just have to learn to deal with it.

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Bored Paul Rudd GIF

I'd rather be in this position we are after a competitive season with interest in the team booming than what was going on with Shaka. As stated above, it is what it is and it will long term help us more than hurt us.

We will just need more flowsheets to figure out who is who.

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11 hours ago, Brian Fantana said:

It's not ideal for us fans, but like @SL Xpress said, it's pretty good for the players and that's really what should matter in my book. The entire landscape was going to change once the student athletes gained at least some of the self-determination they always should have had. We'll just have to learn to deal with it.

i don't think it is.  the weaker ncaabb gets as an organization the worse it is for the participants.  there will be a few players for whom this self-determination results in a better result otherwise but i'm not convinced kids transferring 2, 3 times over the course of 5 or 6 years is good for their development and long-term career aspirations.  not to mention the unrealistic mindset of cut and run the current setup of this portal enables.  this doesn't happen in real-life when you get to the g-league or go overseas.  you're bound by contracts.  

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The thing about Askew is that Chris Beard might be the best type of coach for a kid like him.  He has the nose for defense, he has the motor, he actually has decent shooting mechanics.  He could be very productive here.  He just needs to get out of his own head.

OK, maybe getting kids out of their own head isn't Beard's #1 strength, but I still could see Askew being  much bigger contributor next year.

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