Texas Basketball: 3 most underrated players of the 2010’s

Looking back on the last decade of the Texas basketball program, who were the most underappreciated players to suit up for the Longhorns?

Over the course of the last decade, the Texas basketball program faced a lot of ups and downs that ended in a weird way this past season. That all rounded up in the only unthinkable way under the current coaching regime, with the season ending without an NCAA Tournament.

In this particular list of the most underrated Longhorn men’s basketball players, we’re sorting through the seasons ranging from 2009-10 up to the most recent campaign. Texas fell under the wing of two head coaches in the last decade, starting with former head man Rick Barnes and finishing up with the current one Shaka Smart.

Barnes is currently the head coach of the Tennessee Volunteers, and had some success over in Knoxville. He saw the door off of the Forty Acres following the end of the 2014-15 season. That’s when Texas made the move to hire the former VCU Rams head coach Smart prior to the start of the 2015-16 season.

Over the course of the last decade, the Longhorns made the NCAA Tournament in seven of 11 tries. Granted the 2019-20 season doesn’t fully count in that group, so we’ll say the Longhorns made it to the “Big Dance” 70 percent of the time in the 2010’s. The novel coronavirus pandemic cancelled out the NCAA Tournament this year before Selection Sunday was even able to transpire.

All but two of the NCAA Tournament appearances in the last decade for the Longhorns came under the direction of Barnes. Smart only made it to the Big Dance during the 2015-16 and 2017-18 seasons, both of which resulted in first round exists.

Nonetheless, Texas did still have a lot of NBA-caliber talent roll through the Forty Acres throughout the 2010’s. A lot of those standout players didn’t get enough credit thanks to Texas not staying all that relevant on the national scene.

But now let’s take a look back and spotlight the three most underrated players of the last decade for the Texas men’s hoops program.