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

It would be interesting to know what would’ve happened for the college career of former Texas shooting guard and highly touted four-star recruit Sheldon McClellan if he was to stick around on the Forty Acres for more than two seasons. Instead the 6-foot-5 and 205 pound Houston, TX, native and Bellaire High School product wound up leaving for the Miami Hurricanes basketball program after his sophomore season.

Requesting a release from the Texas men’s hoops program during the 2013 offseason, McClellan was quick to find his next landing spot in south Florida.

McClellan would play out his college hoops career through the end of the 2015-16 season with the Hurricanes. And he would earn All-ACC regular season and postseason team honors in his senior season. But some of the most efficient seasons that McClellan had during his playing days in college actually came under Barnes’ direction with the Longhorns.

During his true freshman campaign, back during the 2011-12 season, McClellan played in 34 games for the Longhorns. He averaged 11.3 points per game, 3.3 rebounds, 0.6 assists, and 1.0 steals. He did that while shooting 44.8 percent from the field, 31.0 percent from beyond the arc, and 75.6 percent from the free-throw line.

Those numbers would help McClellan post a stellar box plus/minus rating of 7.3 (6.5 combined in his two years with Texas), .159 win shares per 40 minutes (.152 for his Texas career), and a 19.8 player efficiency rating (hovered around the same number the following season).