Texas Basketball: 3 portal guards the Longhorns are pursuing in late May

In the first couple of months of the 2023 offseason, Texas basketball and new head coach Rodney Terry have constantly remained in the midst of the NCAA Transfer Portal headlines to try and rebuild this roster that has faced so much attrition. Texas will turn over most of last year’s roster ahead of the 2023-24 season, including both of the five-star recruits that were signed to the 2023 class.

Terry and the Longhorns have responded to all the roster attrition early this offseason by adding four portal commits since April. Texas started out by adding the former Virginia Cavaliers redshirt junior center Kadin Shedrick on April 23.

And then, the Longhorns added its biggest portal commit of the offseason to date in the former Oral Roberts standout senior guard Max Abmas. The two-time Summit League Player of the Year Abams automatically puts Texas in a spot to have a top-25 caliber team heading into next season.

Terry and his staff weren’t done in the portal after adding Abmas, though. Texas also added subsequent portal commits on May 4 from the former UT-Arlington Mavericks freshman guard Chendall Weaver and UTEP Miners junior power forward Ze’Rik Onyema.

I would anticipate that the Longhorns still look to add two more portal players ahead of the 2023-24 season, now knowing that rising junior guard Tyrese Hunter will return to Texas.

Top priority portal guards in late May for Texas basketball

Here’s a look at three portal guards the Longhorns are looking at heading into late May.

Jaylin Sellers, CG

Texas is clearly still prioritizing seeking guard help via the transfer portal this offseason. Even with Hunter returning to Texas next season, the backcourt and wing units still look pretty thin.

And one of the portal guard targets that Terry and the Longhorns have shown interest in the last couple of weeks is the former Ball State Cardinals 6-foot-4 and 180-pound sophomore combo guard Jaylin Sellers. The reigning All-MAC Third-Team selection and former MAC All-Freshman Team selection Sellers is one of the best floor spacers remaining in the portal at this point of the offseason.

Yet, we’re now about at the two-week mark since we originally heard the rumblings of the Longhorns’ interest in Sellers in the portal. In the last five days or so, we haven’t heard much as it pertains to the communication picking up between Texas and Sellers.

The latest we’ve heard on this portal recruitment is that Sellers visited the UCF Knights on May 16 (per Jon Rothstein). Granted, we did see that Sellers posted pictures of himself on his Instagram story earlier this week in a Georgetown Hoyas uniform.

As it stands, it still looks like Texas is interested in what Sellers brings to the table as a younger guard that can space the floor that has multiple years of eligibility remaining. If Texas does wind up pushing more in this portal recruitment in the coming days, it wouldn’t surprise me to see a visit set up at some point in the next couple of weeks.