Texas Basketball: 3 early HC candidates that would be home run hires

At the moment, it looks like the head coaching search for the Texas basketball program to replace the recently-fired Chris Beard is on pause. Athletic director Chris del Conte and the Texas administration are looking to wait until the offseason arrives to officially find the next head coach for the men’s hoops program.

The focus right now for the Longhorns is to contend in the Big 12 and make a solid run in the NCAA Tournament. For that to happen, acting head coach Rodney Terry and the Longhorns must continue their solid run at the outset of Big 12 play.

Terry and the Longhorns are currently riding a three-game winning streak as of the afternoon of Jan. 17, ahead of a high-stakes matchup on the road against the No. 12 Iowa State Cyclones.

If Terry can make a solid run with the Longhorns as the interim head coach this season, that should keep him in contention as a candidate to be the next full-time coach. But there are a plethora of other options that are being mentioned as possible candidates for the Texas job.

Baylor’s Scott Drew and the potential home run hires Texas basketball could find among the early candidates for head coach

Here’s a look at three early candidates for the Texas head coaching job that would be home run hires for CDC.

Scott Drew, Baylor head coach

Among the best candidates that CDC and the Longhorns could find within the state of Texas to be the next head coach of this men’s hoops program is the longtime Baylor Bears bench boss Scott Drew. The Butler Bulldogs alumni are currently in his 20th year as Baylor’s head coach, where he’s built one of the best programs in the entire country.

When Drew first took the job at Baylor, that program was one of the worst in the Big 12, if not the entire pool of programs in the major conferences. He did a fantastic job turning this program around in one of the best rebuilds we’ve seen in college hoops in the last couple of decades.

Drew has quickly turned Baylor into one of the best programs in the entire country in the last half-decade or so. Baylor has finished in the top five in each of the last three seasons. And one of those included a National Championship (in 2020-21).

The success that Drew has found at Baylor stems beyond the results on the court. Baylor has competed among the best college hoops programs in the country on the recruiting trail in the last few years. In the last three cycles, Baylor has signed a whopping four five-star recruits. And Baylor is on pace for its fourth consecutive top-30 ranked recruiting class in the nation for the 2023 cycle.

All in all, there are a lot of boxes that Drew could check as a potential Texas head coaching candidate. He would be a long shot, but one worth contacting for the Texas administration and boosters.

"But if I were Texas, I’d be working hard to get him to at least pick up the phone, in the hopes of nabbing him out of Waco the way Texas stole Beard out of Lubbock."

Brendan Quinn of The Athletic put it well regarding Texas’ hypothetical pursuit of Drew as a coaching candidate.