Bob Huggins takes shot at Chris Beard’s portal work for Texas
One of the final games on tap for the regular season for first-year head coach Chris Beard and No. 20 ranked Texas basketball comes on the road on Feb. 26 against head coach Bob Huggins and the West Virginia Mountaineers. Texas will be looking to build a two-game winning streak if they can top West Virginia this weekend in Morgantown.
Yet, Huggins was already able to speak out on one topic that is apparently important to him regarding Beard and the Longhorns ahead of their meeting with the Mountaineers on Feb. 26. Following West Virginia’s double-digit loss to head coach Bill Self and the Kansas Jayhawks last weekend, Huggins talked about the work that Beard and the Longhorns did in the NCAA Transfer Portal last offseason and how it’s panning out so far this season.
Huggins essentially said that he feels like Beard did better work recruiting and developing players that fit his system from the ground-up during his time as the Texas Tech Red Raiders than he did with some of the stars out of the portal with the Longhorns this year. The approach from Huggins here seems to be that recruiting high school players is still a better process than hitting the transfer portal hard to make an immediate impact on your team.
Bob Huggins takes a shot at the work Texas basketball and Chris Beard did in the portal in 2021
We’ll see how this pans out for Huggins when the Longhorns and Mountaineers meet on the hardwood in Morgantown this weekend.
But there is some validity to these remarks from Huggins if you look at them objectively. Texas Tech did have some better seasons in the last half-decade under Beard’s direction when he was purely working with the talent that he recruited and developed coming out of high school compared to Texas’ results so far this season.
It’s still difficult to argue with the work that Beard and the Longhorns staff did in the transfer portal last offseason. That work set a very high floor for this program this season.
You can validly argue Beard and his staff needs to do better work in terms of talent evaluation and scheme fit out of the portal in offseasons to come. But there will be some kinks to work out for any head coach coming into a situation like Beard did with the Texas hoops program post-Shaka Smart.
Next. 3 notable former Texas players still available in the portal. dark
Heading into this meeting with West Virginia on Feb. 26, Texas is sporting a record of 20-8 (9-6 Big 12) after their convincing nine-point win over the TCU Horned Frogs on Feb. 23. Tip-off time between Texas and West Virginia on Feb. 26 is set for 1 p.m. CT.