Where Texas basketball ranks among Sweet 16 teams in NBA talent?

In a few days, interim head coach Rodney Terry and the two-seed Texas basketball will take on the three-seed Xavier Musketeers and head coach Sean Miller in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest Region. Texas has rolled through the 15-seed Colgate Raiders in the Round of 64 and 10-seed Penn State Nittany Lions in the Round of 32 to reach the Sweet 16.

Terry and the Longhorns will return to T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, MO, for the fourth time in the last couple of weeks to face Xavier in the Sweet 16. It was just earlier this month that the Longhorns took down the seven-seed Oklahoma State Cowboys, six-seed TCU Horned Frogs, and one-seed Kansas Jayhawks to claim the Big 12 Men’s Tournament crown.

Texas has a good mix of talent, depth, and a lot of experience that got this squad to where it’s at now. According to Kenpom’s experience ratings, Texas is the sixth-most experienced team in all of college hoops this season.

Texas is also chalked full of blue-chip talent, with more than half of the core roster being made of former four and five-star recruits. Of the players on the Longhorns’ current roster, a whopping 10 were blue-chip recruits coming out of high school in at least one of the major recruiting services.

Yet, it doesn’t look as if many of these former blue-chip recruits are viewed in a very positive light in terms of their standing in the NBA Draft. A piece from 247Sports on March 20 that ranked out the teams remaining in the Sweet 16 this year with the most NBA Draft prospects, Texas was near the bottom of the list with just one.

Dillon Mitchell noted as the only “draftable” Texas basketball player

The only Longhorn that was mentioned as a “draftable” player this year is true freshman forward Dillon Mitchell. With Mitchell included as a potential first-round NBA Draft pick by 247Sports, Texas tied the five-seed Miami Hurricanes, four-seed Tennessee Volunteers, and three-seed Kansas State Wildcats as the four teams with one “draftable” prospect those remaining in the Sweet 16.

The three teams in the Sweet 16 that didn’t have a single player listed as “draftable” were the 15-seed Princeton Tigers, nine-seed Florida Atlantic Owls, and five-seed San Diego State Aztecs.

It’s worth noting that Texas is the highest-seeded team to not have multiple “draftable” players listed in this article.

Key Texas talents slighted by 247Sports

I will say that there are some solid Texas players that could be included in this list if they ultimately decide to declare for the 2023 NBA Draft (i.e. guard Arterio Morris and big man Dylan Disu). While Morris didn’t have the true freshman campaign that many expected him to as a five-star recruit coming out of Dallas Kimball High School in the 2022 class, he still has the tools to be a first-round talent in the NBA Draft down the road.

There are others such as Disu and senior guard Marcus Carr that could be pegged as mid-to-late second-round talents if they show out at the NBA Combine and throughout the rest of the scouting process next offseason.

The fact of the matter is that Morris wasn’t the only one that hasn’t come close to living up to his true potential in college yet among Texas’ former five-star recruits. Mitchell also didn’t make some of the strides he needed to (expanding his shooting range, improving his court vision, etc.) really solidify himself as a first-round NBA Draft prospect either, but he is mentioned as a first-round caliber player on this list.

Morris was probably left off this list due to the likelihood that he will return to school for at least another year to try and hone his skills while moving into a bigger role at Texas. Meanwhile, Mitchell will be one of the more interesting NBA Draft decisions to watch this summer.