Texas Basketball: Where Ron Holland went in latest 2024 NBA Mock Draft

Texas basketball and newly-hired head coach Rodney Terry has a really intriguing group of signees in the 2023 recruiting class. Texas signed two five-star prospects from the high school ranks in the 2023 class, Duncanville forward Ron Holland and Southern California Academy combo guard AJ Johnson.

The former of those two elite five-star signees in the Longhorns 2023 class, Holland, is already getting a lot of hype for the 2024 NBA Draft. After flashing on both ends of the court in the McDonald’s All-America Game on March 28 and having a stellar season of high school hoops that netted him Naismith High School Boys Player of the Year finalist honors, Holland saw his draft stock skyrocket in the last couple of months.

One recent 2024 mock draft from Bleacher Report’s Jonathan Wasserman this week tabbed Holland as the second overall pick, only behind the No.1 ranked recruit in the nation in the 2023 class. The No. 1 ranked recruit in the 2023 class is the five-star USC Trojans signee and Marietta Wheeler (GA) point guard Isaiah Collier.

This is a massive rise for Holland, who was often viewed as a late lottery pick in the 2024 draft before the McDonald’s All-America Game. But a stellar senior season and a good showing as a McDonald’s All-American will surely help boost your draft stock seemingly in the blink of an eye.

5-Star Texas basketball F signee Ron Holland getting hype as a top 5 pick in 2024 NBA Mock Drafts

For good measure, Holland was projected as the sixth overall pick in a 2024 mock draft published last month by ESPN’s Jonathan Givony. For what it’s worth, Givony had Holland going sixth overall to the Utah Jazz. Even weirder is that Givony also had Collier getting picked right in front of Holland, just at fifth overall.

This really shows how much uncertainty there is surrounding the 2024 NBA Draft class at the moment. Unlike the 2023 draft class that has some “generational talents” such as big man Victory Wembayana and guard Scoot Henderson, the 2024 class has more question marks.

What is clear, though, is that the Longhorns have two lottery-caliber prospects coming into the program this year in Holland and Johnson. It’s worth noting that Johnson was selected 13th overall in Givony’s mock draft from late last month.

If this scenario were to come to fruition, it would be the first time in program history that the Longhorns had two lottery picks in the same draft. Texas does have a few instances of multiple players from the program getting picked in the first round in the same year (i.e. 2011 with Jordan Hamilton, Tristan Thompson, and Cory Joseph), but never two lottery picks in the same draft.

If key players such as freshmen Dillon Mitchell and Arterio Morris decide to return to Texas next season, Terry and the Longhorns will boast at least four former five-star recruits on the roster. That could also mean that the Longhorns have at least three lottery-caliber talents on the roster for the 2023-24 campaign.