Texas Basketball: 3 players who must step up in place of Jericho Sims

Texas basketball is about to hit dire straits without the service of junior center Jericho Sims in the starting five for the rest of the regular season.

The 2019-20 regular season is reaching a dire point for the Texas basketball program. Head coach Shaka Smart is watching his team slip in the Big 12 standings as their NCAA Tournament hopes dwindle during the month of February. What made matters worse was Texas receiving injury news of late that if can ill afford at this point of the regular season.

Texas looks to now be without standout junior center Jericho Sims for the remainder of the regular season thanks to a back injury he suffered last week. Sims is the most efficient and well-rounded player statistically for Texas so far this season. Junior guard Matt Coleman got off to a hot start but really cooled down since the start of Big 12 play.

What also adds fuel to the flame for Texas with this Sims injury news is how thin they are in the frontcourt. Texas has a lot of young and promising bigs, but not many of them are proven yet (or anything close to that). Texas landed a top 20 ranked 2019 recruiting class in the nation, and the bulk of the signees were bigs, but they haven’t come through early in their time on the Forty Acres thus far.

Texas owns a record of 14-11 (4-8 Big 12) after their latest loss, which came at the hands of a shorthanded 11-win Iowa State Cyclones team by the final score of 81-52. That was about as bad as it could get for Texas. Hopefully Smart isn’t able to one-up that down the stretch this season.

Here’s a look into the three players from the Texas Longhorns basketball program who must step up in the wake of the season-ending back injury to junior big man Jericho Sims.