Texas basketball cracks top 5 for elite 2024 PF Donnie Freeman

Head coach Chris Beard is on a real hot streak on the recruiting trail for Texas basketball in the 2023 class this month. Texas has already landed commitments from a couple of elite five-star recruits in the 2023 class in the last few weeks in Duncanville forward Ron Holland and Southern California Academy combo guard AJ Johnson.

With Beard and the Longhorns essentially locking in the foundational commitments in the 2023 class earlier this month, more attention is starting to get placed on the 2024 recruiting cycle at the moment.

Texas doesn’t have any commitments in the 2024 class as of Nov. 24. But Beard and his staff are once again laying the foundation for what could turn out to be an elite group of recruits that sign with the Longhorns 2024 class.

An early name to watch among the priority targets of the Longhorns 2024 class is the highly touted four-star (rated as a five-star prospect by a couple of the major recruiting services) 6-foot-9 and 200-pound St. John’s (Washington D.C.) power forward Donnie Freeman.

The versatile and lengthy Freeman recently included Texas in his latest round of finalist cuts on Nov. 24. Freeman cut his list of finalist schools down to five on Thanksgiving Day 2022 which also included the Iowa Hawkeyes, Maryland Terrapins, LSU Tigers, and Rutgers Scarlet Knights.

Texas basketball makes the top 5 for talented 2024 PF Donnie Freeman

This is an interesting group of schools among those that are newer to the recruitment of Freeman (such as LSU) and those that he has already visited.

Freeman visited Austin officially on Oct. 15, 2022. And it looks like Beard and his staff made an incredible impression on Freeman and his camp coming out of that official visit last month.

In talking about Texas, Freeman mentioned that he liked watching the likes of Kevin Durant and Greg Brown growing up (both power forwards like himself). He’s also talked about the strong relationships he’s cultivated with Beard and assistant Bob Donewald Jr.

But Texas is going to have a real fight on its hands with a fast-rising school like LSU making a big move with Freeman of late. Rutgers and Maryland are also top schools for Freeman that are a little bit closer to home.

And it looks like Iowa is the presumed favorite in the race to land a commitment from Freeman at the moment. Freeman was blown away by his official visit to Iowa City to see the Hawkeyes in September.

Texas is doing well with the out-of-state recruiting right now, especially with what Beard and his staff are building for the 2024 class. And among the big men that Texas is heavily pursuing in the 2024 class right now, Freeman, four-star PF Robert Miller III, and five-star center Yves Missi are some of the top names to watch.