Texas Basketball: 3 must-get portal priorities for the Longhorns in May

After April brought about a lot of drama in the NCAA Transfer Portal for newly-hired full-time head coach Rodney Terry and the Texas basketball program, the month of May promises to be a busy one too. Texas is already kicking off the month of May with a busy week of visits from priority targets in the transfer portal.

Terry and the Longhorns will host at least two priority portal visitors this week. And with multiple de-commitments having taken place in the 2023 recruiting class in the last few weeks, Terry and his staff have even more roster spots to fill via the transfer portal ahead of next season.

So far this offseason, Texas has added two portal commitments. The first came on April 23 in the form of the former Virginia Cavaliers redshirt junior center Kadin Shedrick. Then, Texas landed its biggest portal prize of the offseason so far in the former Oral Roberts standout senior guard Max Abmas on April 27.

Even with the two big portal additions for the Longhorns this offseason, Terry and his staff still have quite a few scholarship spots to fill to round out this roster.

Ze’Rik Onyema and Texas basketball’s top portal priorities in May

With that in mind, here’s a look at three must-get portal priority targets for Terry and the Longhorns in May.

Ze’Rik Onyema, PF

The first priority portal visitor for the Longhorns this week is the former UTEP Miners junior 6-foot-8 and 230-pound power forward Ze’Rik Onyema. Texas started the visit with Onyema on May 1 after he had a multi-day visit to Nashville, TN, last week to see the Vanderbilt Commodores.

A report from Adrian Broaddus of ESPN Radio 600 in El Paso on the afternoon of May 1 indicates that Onyema has narrowed down his list of top schools to the Ole Miss Rebels, Texas Tech Red Raiders, Texas, and Vanderbilt. But it sounds like this portal recruitment could ultimately come down to Texas and Vanderbilt.

If Onyema’s visit to the Forty Acres this week goes well, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get a decision from the UTEP transfer by the start of next week. Given that Texas and Vanderbilt are the two schools with the most buzz in this portal recruitment right now, I’d imagine that two successful visits to each in the last couple of weeks could help Onyema narrow his decision.

At the moment, it’s hard to argue with the idea that Onyema is Texas’ top portal priority among frontcourt targets. Terry wants the player that he recruited to UTEP when he was the Miners’ head coach a few years ago.