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

Since the start of his freshman season, the former four-star recruit and now sophomore forward Kamaka Hepa wasn’t quite able to live up to the hype. Hepa came onto the Forty Acres with a seemingly versatile skill set that is modern in the game of basketball for a big man. He has a smooth enough shooting stroke to be a capable outside shooter.

And Hepa has enough size and strength to contend with most other big men down low in the Big 12 game in and game out. But the defensive impact that the Longhorns had to think that Hepa could make in coming off the bench wasn’t put on display yet. An offensive box plus/minus rating just above zero and a defensive box plus/minus of 4.3 is deceiving. His offensive rating of about 102 and a defensive rating of 97 more closely identifies with the impact he made so far.

So far this season, Hepa is averaging 3.3 points per game, 2.1 rebounds, and 0.7 assists, while shooting 39.2 percent from the field and 30.0 percent from beyond the arc. The shooting numbers for Hepa from the charity stripe dropped significantly from last season too. He’s shooting 10.2 percent less from the free-throw line this year compared to last.

Losing Sims for the remainder of the regular season makes it so that the Longhorns need to find a new go-to big man inside the two-point arc. But if the Longhorns adapt their offense a bit to a more capable floor spacing big like Hepa, that could get his confidence up enough to get in a better rhythm from the field night in and night out.