Texas Basketball: Breaking down transfer guards interested in Horns

Landing a big time guard out of the NCAA Transfer Portal could be exactly what the Texas basketball program needs this offseason.

The time of year has arrived for the Texas basketball program to start looking to the NCAA Transfer Portal to fill various depth needs on their roster. Since the college basketball offseason began a bit earlier than originally anticipated thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic, head coach Shaka Smart and his Texas team can start figuring things out pretty early.

The NCAA Tournament didn’t get to happen this year, neither did Selection Sunday. Most significant conference tournaments were also cut short before they got good. That included the Big 12 Tournament. The four-seed Texas was supposed to play head coach Chris Beard and the five-seed Texas Tech Red Raiders in their first game of the Big 12 Tournament on March 12.

Yet, looking back on what could’ve been is a task best left for hindsight. It doesn’t matter how Texas ended their regular season run since it was abruptly ended. COVID-19 really shut down the entire sports world in the process.

As a result of the college basketball season getting cut short, there was controversy as to how Texas athletic director Chris del Conte would handle the coaching situation with Smart. Sitting on one of the hotter seats of any big name hoops program in the nation for much of the season, Smart wound up getting into the only position that couldn’t legitimately determine his fate.

But Smart will be coming back for one more year at least. He’ll be bringing back a rather experience roster, but there are still a few holes in the rotation that he could fill this offseason.

Here’s a deeper look into the three transfer guard options for the Texas Longhorns basketball program that had reported interest of late.