Texas Basketball: 4 players that will breakout in 2020-21 season
Texas basketball head coach Shaka Smart largely has the same roster he’ll work with this season compared to last. But he’ll need some new faces to step up.
It is almost go time for the Texas basketball program, entering a critical 2020-21 season under the direction of head coach Shaka Smart. The Texas men’s hoops program had a really solid finish to the 2019-20 regular season, before the campaign was called to an end prematurely during the Big 12 Tournament in the midst of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
There’s not really a whole lot that will be changing for the Longhorns between the end of last season and the start of next season, in terms of roster changes. In fact there were more personnel changes to Smart’s coaching staff then there were to the roster itself.
Texas finished up the 2019-20 regular season with a record of 19-12 (9-9 Big 12), good for tied in third place in the conference standings. In their first game of the Big 12 Tournament, Texas was supposed to face the five-seed Texas Tech Red Raiders. But the Big 12 Tournament was cancelled out ahead of Selection Sunday due to the COVID-19 outbreak before Texas could play any games.
The last game that Texas played in during the 2019-20 campaign was in the regular season finale at home back on March 7, in a tough home loss to the Oklahoma State Cowboys at the Frank Erwin Center. And the Longhorns are supposed to open up their 2020-21 regular season after Thanksgiving this year.
The first scheduled game up, as it stands on the afternoon of Oct. 12, comes against Davidson in the first round of the Maui Invitational. This year the Maui Invitational will be held at an alternative site, in Asheville, NC.
Texas needs a big year to help Smart stave off the hot seat. He got a weird end to the 2019-20 season, as did pretty much every college hoops program in the nation.
Who could he rely on to breakthrough in a big way this coming season? Here’s a look at four Longhorns basketball players to watch that could breakout during the 2020-21 season.