Texas Basketball: 3 players to watch in voluntary summer workouts

In the season that was for the Longhorns, a player that showed a lot of potential out of the gates was sophomore 6-foot-8 and 200 pound Cibolo, TX, native and former four-star recruit Gerald Liddell. But injury wound up cutting Liddell’s season short, and he ultimately played in just 15 games during the 2019-20 campaign.

In those 15 games that Liddell played in, he averaged 4.4 points per game, 3.3 rebounds, 1.0 assists, 0.5 steals, and 0.7 blocks. He shot 40.3 percent from the field, 33.3 percent from beyond the arc, and a rather poor 48.0 percent from the free-throw line. That amounted to an effective field goal percentage of 43.5 and a 44.7 true shooting percentage.

But while Liddell still mostly showed up in the box score as a net negative when he was on the floor, in terms of the advanced metrics, he did improve greatly. His box plus/minus rating improved nearly four points, down to -1.1, and his defensive rating improved from 105.1 as a freshman to 94.2 last season.

There’s numerous areas in which Liddell needs to improve his game, but he’s starting to show that the raw talent and potential that Smart saw in him can develop. Liddell was the second highest rated signee in the Longhorns 2018 recruiting class. He ranked as the nation’s No. 49 2018 high school prospect, No. 10 small forward, and No. 2 prospect out of Texas (247Sports Composite).

This is an extremely important player for Texas to see a good level of progression from this offseason.