Texas Basketball: Horns should pursue transfer F DeAndre Williams

A name worth pursuing for the Texas basketball program just showed up in the NCAA Transfer Portal on April 20, Evansville F DeAndre Williams.

The NCAA Transfer Portal in the world of college hoops is starting to get pretty ripe with talent as we work further into the 2020 offseason. And the Texas basketball program can certainly take advantage of that given the uncertainty surrounding the 2020 recruiting class under head coach Shaka Smart.

Heading into the 2020 offseason, the Texas Longhorns basketball program looked to bring back a lot of production from the roster last season. The likes of guards Courtney Ramey and Matt Coleman, big man Jericho Sims, and shooting guard Andrew Jones, among others, should all be back for the Longhorns next season.

But if Texas isn’t able to get a single highly touted commit in their 2020 recruiting class, then they’ll need to fill the void elsewhere. This is where turning to the transfer portal would be a very valuable tool that comes into play for Smart and the Longhorns.

One name that just showed up in the transfer portal that a number of top tier college hoops programs should be going after (including Texas) is standout Evansville 6-foot-9 freshman forward DeAndre Williams. The second he put his name into the transfer portal, Williams became one of the most coveted potential major conference program targets.

The report that Williams put his name into the transfer portal first surfaced on the Twitter timeline of Rivals Corey Evans.

There were past problems that Williams ran into since he was recruited out of Klein Forest High School in Houston, TX, during the 2016 cycle. A point in time saw Williams holding offers from the Oklahoma State Cowboys, Baylor Bears, SMU Mustangs, and Houston Cougars. But he wound up taking his talents to join Evansville, and was even ruled ineligible for the 2018-19 season.

Once Williams was finally ready to go, he was truly a standout forward for the Evansville basketball program. Williams played in 18 games (starting 15 of them) during his first season. He averaged 15.2 points per game, 6.9 rebounds, 2.7 assists, and 1.0 blocks, while shooting 64.8 percent from the field, and 45.5 percent from beyond the arc.

A 31.9 player efficiency rating, 71.9 true shooting percentage, 28.1 percent assist rate, 2.9 win shares, .238 win shares per 40 minutes, and a 10.4 box plus/minus rating were all stellar advanced numbers that Williams managed last season. His production might have been even stronger if he was able to finish out his first season. But he would miss 14 games with a back injury.

If Williams does wind up playing at least one more season in college, then Texas might be a good landing spot. The Houston native would get to go closer to home, and get under the direction of a head coach that is known for running a very clean program in Smart.

Among forwards that still have multiple years of eligibility in the transfer portal, there’s not many players that offer as much proven value and production as Williams. If he can keep eligible leading up to the 2020-21 season, then he would be a great addition for the Longhorns.