Texas Men's Basketball has a ton more options schematically with the type of players Sean Miller has added this portal cycle.
The Texas Longhorns have put together a top-five transfer portal class as head coach Sean Miller builds on a Sweet 16 berth in this year's NCAA tournament and prepares for Year 2 at the helm in Austin.
With five high-quality commits thus far, Miller's group fits a certain criterion: each player brings a strong combination of size and skill.
The coach hopes it can all transfer into a style of play that he recognized most after coaching in the SEC for the first time.
"I think size is really important," Miller said on the Field of 68 podcast recently. "If you look at college basketball ... the gift of size, those [teams in the Final Four] having elite size.
"And when you have size, you can be more interchangeable. Different players can be on the court with different combinations. ... So I think the size and the versatility of our group is something we really wanted to make sure that we had."
Miller's portal additions include David Punch, Amari Evans, Elyjah Freeman, Isaiah Johnson, and Mikey Lewis - who all rated as 4-star transfer prospects by 247Sports' metrics. They all have the necessary qualities to make this team one of the most versatile in the country.
Punch comes by way of TCU after emerging as one of the Big 12's best big men. The 6-7 forward averaged 14.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, 1.9 blocks, and 1.3 steals while shooting 50.3 percent from the field. He also helped lead TCU to an NCAA Tournament appearance as an 8 seed and a first-round win over Ohio State.
For the 6-5 wing Evans, defense is the calling card. Before his career at Tennessee, he was a two-time Overtime Elite Defensive Player of the Year and set the league’s career steals record with 118. That versatility Miller references isn't dedicated just to offense when a player like Evans can guard nearly every position on the floor.
The Colorado transfer, Johnson, also comes from a strong basketball conference in the Big 12. 6-1 guard scored 16.9 points as a freshman, ranking third in the conference and 13th nationally among Division I freshmen. His 540 points set Colorado’s freshman scoring record, passing NBA vet Alec Burks’ previous mark of 512.
Freeman's value on this roster, however, is not in volume scoring. It is in the things that do not always show up in a box score. The former Auburn Tiger's length and athleticism at 6-8 allow Miller to deploy a switching defense that can guard multiple personnel groups without breaks in coverage.
It's a group that has CBS analyst Jon Rothstein gushing about the Longhorns' potential, enough for him to call them a "bonafide contender" and put Texas inside his top 10 in the early stages of the offseason.
"This Longhorns transfer class has a clear design," said Roundtable's Timm Hamm. "Johnson brings scoring punch. Punch gives [Matas] Vokietaitis a front court partner. Evans and Freeman add defensive bite on the wing."
The Longhorns' biggest loss is Dailyn Swain, who enters the NBA as a likely first-round pick. Four other Texas exes are transferring out: Cam Heide, Declan Duru Jr., Nic Codie and Simeon Wilcher.
However, the reinforcements, including the Lithuanian big man Vokietaitis returning and high school All-Americans Bo Ogden and Austin Goosby arriving, have set up Miller with enough to make last year's Sweet 16 run - and then some - the new standard on the Forty Acres.
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