Texas Basketball Recruiting: Duke winning Matthew Hurt/Cassius Stanley pledges?

The losses on the recruiting trail of late for the Texas basketball program among its targets offered for this cycle could continue with Cassius Stanley.

For the 2019 Texas basketball recruiting class, adding another commit after the Early Signing Period came and went isn’t going so well. We’re starting to see nationally prominent college hoops programs like the Duke Blue Devils and Kentucky Wildcats round out respective 2019 signing class just ahead of National Signing Day.

Duke is having good fortunes on the recruiting trail at the moment, mainly by landing the No. 8 2019 high school prospect in the nation with five-star Rochester, MN, power forward Matthew Hurt.

The last full signing period for this recruiting cycle in the world of college hoops is looming large at the moment. And, the Texas basketball program needs to catch up with the rest of the teams that it should be competing with on the recruiting trail. A handful of other Big 12 programs like the Texas Tech Red Raiders, Oklahoma Sooners, and Oklahoma State Cowboys are rapidly approaching Texas basketball in the conference and national recruiting rankings.

According to the 247Sports Team Composite Rankings, the Texas Longhorns basketball program ranks at No. 13 in the nation and in the top overall spot in the Big 12 for its 2019 recruiting class. That is a decently big dip from the No. 8 spot that Texas basketball had in the national class rankings for the 2018 cycle, but it is certainly still solid.

The issue for head Texas basketball coach Shaka Smart and this program during the month of April is that the recruiting front was so quiet for so long. Since landing four-star big man Kai Jones late last fall, the Longhorns haven’t had much of anything going for the 2019 recruiting class, or any future cycles.

These struggles for the Longhorns on the recruiting trail in the world of college hoops is also due to the extended timelines that a lot of prospects took to make their commitments. The aforementioned Hurt was one of the biggest five-star prospects to announce this late in the recruiting cycle.

The commitment to Duke from Hurts could be the first of a few during this signing period for head coach Mike Krzyzewksi. Another prospect to watch, and one that actually had a Texas basketball offer on the table, is talented four-star Sierra Canyon High School and Chatsworth, CA, shooting guard Cassius Stanley.

Over the past few months, the Longhorns were mostly eliminated from contention to land Stanley’s commitment. That is somewhat surprising considering the amount of effort that Texas put into his recruitment in the first place.

The 247Sports Crystal Ball Predictions gives the Blue Devils the edge to land Stanley over the likes of the in-state USC Trojans and UCLA Bruins. Duke could snag another top signing class in the nation, this time for the 2019 cycle, by landing Hurt and Stanley in the same month.

Since Duke already owns the nation’s top 2019 recruiting class, landing Stanley would just be more insurance to its claim atop this cycle’s class rankings. Stanley is a big fish to land. He also held offers from Big 12 programs like the Kansas Jayhawks, Longhorns, and Sooners, and scout looks from the West Virginia Mountaineers.