Texas Basketball: 5 reasons the Longhorns win a national title this season

Head coach that has been there before

What is exciting about the fact that Texas hired the former Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Beard to replace Shaka Smart as head coach is the fact that he’s taken his teams far in the postseason before.

That was not something that Smart was ever able to do over the course of more than a half-decade as Texas’ head coach. It felt like that could all change last season, but Texas still underwent one of the most surprising and frustrating upsets in the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament last season.

It was just a few years ago that Beard took the Red Raiders on that elusive run to the NCAA Tournament Championship Game against the top-seed Virginia Cavaliers and head coach Tony Bennett. Texas Tech took Virginia to overtime prior to just falling short of winning a National Championship in a heartbreaking fashion.

Texas Tech was not ousted in the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament in each of the last four seasons with Beard as the head coach (granted, one of those years had a canceled NCAA Tournament thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic).

This is the type of success that Texas athletic director Chris del Conte wanted to bring to the Forty Acres.

The difference this season is that this Longhorns team looks to have more talent and depth than any team Beard had during his roughly half-decade-long tenure in Lubbock. This really looks like it will be a special season for Texas on the hardwood.