Texas Basketball: 3 takeaways from dominant win over Houston Baptist

Will Texas run small throughout this season?

One of the more interesting aspects to this game for the Longhorns was the fact that the starting unit came out pretty small. That’s not necessarily to say that Texas played small in spirit. But running a small-ball lineup was not something that most Longhorns fans, including myself, likely figured Beard would do out of the gates.

After landing a commitment from the former UMass Minutemen star sophomore center Tre Mitchell out of the NCAA Transfer Portal during the offseason, it looked like Texas had their answer as a starting center.

Instead, Beard rolled with the former Creighton Blue Jays junior forward Christian Bishop and former Utah Utes junior forward Timmy Allen as essentially his starting frontcourt in this game. Bishop got a lot of action around the rim in this game. Allen did a lot of work inside on both ends of the floor too.

In this game, Bishop came up with 10 points, four rebounds, two assists, no steals, two blocks, and one turnover. And he shot 3-of-3 from the field, didn’t have any attempts from beyond the arc, and shot 4-of-6 from the charity stripe.

Allen and Bishop would combine for 10 boards and 18 points in this game. But if this is the starting frontcourt that Beard is preparing to use against Gonzaga on Nov. 13, this duo will have to get more active on the glass.

The good news here is that Texas seems to have unlimited depth on this team. Beard could turn to Mitchell or the former Vanderbilt Commodores standout power forward Dylan Disu against Gonzaga this weekend. But that does hinge on Disu’s return to the rotation before the Gonzaga game.