Texas Basketball: A lot of HC’s vote Horns as top team in the country

It won’t be too long before the Texas basketball program and new head coach Chris Beard come into full focus on the Forty Acres. The start of the upcoming college hoops season for Beard and this uber-talented Texas team is roughly three weeks away. And there is plenty of hype building for what’s to come this season on the Forty Acres for this rejuvenated men’s hoops program.

So many in the media and among college hoops fans are high on the Longhorns this season. This might be the best Texas team we’ve seen in at least the last decade. Anything short of contending for a Big 12 Title (in the regular season and the conference tournament) and a solid run in the NCAA Tournament could amount to a huge disappointment for the Longhorns this season.

Beard and the Longhorns had a busy offseason in the NCAA Transfer Portal and on the recruiting trail. It is very easy to argue that the Longhorns had the best offseason, by far, of any college hoops program in the country in the transfer portal.

Media and other coaches high on Chris Beard and Texas basketball heading into this season

Texas is getting hype from so many places that it could be hard to focus on a difficult non-conference schedule early this season. But that’s where the mindset has to be for these players and coaches for the Longhorns just a few weeks ahead of the start of the 2021-22 regular season.

The strength of the Longhorns roster heading into this season is highlighted in a piece from CBS Sports done in the last week in which “more than 100 coaches” were polled in an annual survey on which team will be the best in the nation this season. CBS does this “Candid Coaches” survey annually, and it yielded some interesting results for the Longhorns this year.

More than 10 percent of coaches voted that Texas has the best team in the country heading into this season. That placed Beard and the Longhorns as the third most voted on team in this poll. The only two teams that the Longhorns ranked behind here were the UCLA Bruins and Gonzaga Bulldogs.

But Texas was the top-ranked team out of the Big 12 for this season in the survey. Texas fell in line just ahead of head coach Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks, by a two percent margin. Texas and Kansas were also the two Big 12 teams to get votes in this survey.

Even the defending National Champion Baylor Bears didn’t get any votes in this survey, which is pretty surprising.

New additions that highlight this Longhorns squad include center Tre Mitchell, power forward Dylan Disu, point guard Marcus Carr, and forward Timmy Allen, among many others. This Texas team should deliver a whole new level of excitement and success in the win column this season under Beard’s direction in his first year as head coach.

Texas men’s hoops is set to open up the regular season on Nov. 1 at home at the Frank Erwin Center against Texas Lutheran. The first major test for the Longhorns in the non-conference slate comes early in the season against Gonzaga on the road on Nov. 13.