Texas Basketball: 5 elite transfer portal targets for Chris Beard
This is a very crazy time of the offseason around the college hoops landscape as the NCAA Transfer Portal and this recruiting cycle are starting to fill the headlines of late. And one of the programs helping to fill the headlines day in and day out is the Texas basketball program. Newly hired former Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard saw a lot of change within this program in the last two weeks.
At this point of the offseason, the Longhorns are still in the early stages of figuring out what the direction of the program will be under Beard’s guidance. The former Texas Tech head coach was hired back on April 1 to replace the newly hired Marquette Golden Eagles head coach Shaka Smart.
Back on March 26, Smart bolted from Austin to replace Steve Wojciechowski as the next head coach with the Golden Eagles in his home state of Wisconsin. Smart bolted from Texas before any decision to his job status was able to be announced by athletic director Chris del Conte.
What’s happened since Texas basketball hired Chris Beard?
The anticipated roster attrition and volatility on the recruiting trail soon followed the departure of Smart and the subsequent hiring of Beard. In the last three weeks, the Longhorns lost commitments from all of their original signees in Smart’s 2021 recruiting class. And Beard was able to flip the commitment of his recruit and highly coveted four-star John Paul II small forward Jaylon Tyson from Texas Tech.
Moreover, Texas already got a nice haul out of the NCAA Transfer Portal this offseason. Texas figured out this week they would be adding the likes of former Kentucky Wildcats freshman guard Devin Askew and Utah Utes junior small forward Timmy Allen out of the portal ahead of next season. They will also be getting back redshirt junior shooting guard/wing Andrew Jones and sharpshooting senior guard Jase Febres for the 2021-22 campaign.
Although, Beard and the Longhorns still have a long way to go before they round out the roster ahead of next season. Here’s a look at five grand prize transfer portal targets that the Longhorns could still have in mind this offseason.