Texas Basketball: 4 players who could breakout in 2020-21 season

Four candidates stick out that are projected to return to the Texas basketball program next season that could really breakthrough.

Last season will go down as one of the weirdest finishes (if not the weirdest overall) ends to any in the history of the Texas basketball program. Thanks to the novel coronavirus pandemic, which was just emerging at the time in the country in early-to-mid March, the college hoops postseason for men’s and women’s teams was effectively cancelled. Texas was definitely not the only men’s hoops team impacted by the premature end to the season before it got good.

Texas women’s hoops had a similar weird ending and impact on its program. The women’s team wound up parting ways with former head coach Karen Aston after more than five years with the program. Maybe a deep Big 12 Tournament or NCAA Tournament run could’ve saved face for Aston heading into the offseason. But that didn’t come to be.

Men’s hoops head coach Shaka Smart did get a shot for a sixth year with Texas after finishing up the 2019-20 regular season with a record of 19-12 (9-9 Big 12). They were sitting on the bubble on Selection Sunday for the NCAA Tournament. The last regular season game played was at home at the Frank Erwin Center on March 7, resulting in a loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys.

The first Big 12 Tournament game for Texas was supposed to come on March 12 against head coach Chris Beard and the Texas Tech Red Raiders, but the season was called off before tipoff. This leaves a number of looming question marks for men’s hoops heading into the 2020-21 season.

With that, here’s a look into the four players from the Texas Longhorns basketball program who could breakout during the 2020-21 season.