Texas Basketball: Longhorns Mount Rushmore since 2000

The rather long-lived career of the current Houston Rockets veteran forward P.J. Tucker when he played for the Longhorns was a very memorable one too. Tucker played three seasons for the Texas men’s basketball program, and racked up a number of honors throughout the early-to-mid 2000’s.

Tucker was an All-Big 12 Defensive Team selection, 2006 All-Big 12 Tournament Team, NCAA Tournament All-Region, 2005-06 Big 12 Player of the Year, and consensus All-American. You don’t just get those honors from stumbling into one lucky breakthrough season. Tucker earned that on both ends of the floor, and he’s still proving his value in the NBA to this day.

Moreover, Tucker played in 87 games over the course of his three seasons as a Longhorn. He averaged 13.4 points per game, 8.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.3 steals, while shooting 52.6 percent from the field, 50.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 71.1 percent from the charity stripe in his three years with Texas.

That would help Tucker rack up a whopping 13.7 win shares, 57.0 true shooting percentage, and .218 win shares per 40 minutes in his college career. Of those more than 13 win shares, Tucker would get 7.3 of them during his junior season. He also produced more than four of those win shares as a junior defensively.