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

1. Will Baker, Center

Unfulfilled potential and poor spotty usage at times was a huge looming storyline for the talented seven-footer and center Will Baker for his true freshman campaign with the Longhorns. The Austin, TX, native and former five-star highly touted recruit Baker was the biggest part of the Longhorns 2019 signing class.

But Smart and the Longhorns didn’t get the most out of Baker last season, who didn’t even get significant playing time off the bench until injuries started to pile up in the frontcourt rotation. Down the stretch last season, Baker did start to find a better offensive rhythm and played much tougher off-ball defense in the final six or eight games of the Big 12 slate.

There is no doubt a big problem on some end of the spectrum here when a former five-star recruit like Baker, that has as unique of a skill set as he does, plays in just 23 games and posts a negative number of win shares (-0.2) and a measly 1.4 player efficiency rating. The other advanced numbers didn’t do him much of a favor either. He registered a -5.3 box plus/minus rating and a 32.2 true shooting percentage.

And in the 23 games that Baker played in during his freshman season, he averaged 2.1 points per game, 1.9 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.2 steals, and 0.1 blocks. He shot 27.5 percent from the field, 15.4 percent from beyond the arc, and 33.3 percent from the charity stripe.

Baker’s case to breakthrough next season is there because it’s really hard for him to go anywhere but up from here.