Matas Vokietaitis is silently near the top in tournament stat nobody saw coming

Heading into the 2026 NCAA Tournament, it was easy to picture somebody like Texas' 7-foot C Matas Vokietaitis consistently being close to the top of the leaderboards in categories like rebounds or blocks, but that hasn't been the case. He's actually No.2 right now in total points scored in this year's tournament.

As mentioned in the title, nobody saw this one coming as Texas fans most likely assumed that the team's leading scorer in March would be someone like Dailyn Swain or even Jordan Pope, but it's been Vokietaitis fueling the team's offense so far.

Through three tournament games, the Longhorns' big man has scored a total of 55 points, which puts him right behind Arkansas' freshman phenom Darius Acuff Jr. Though Matas Vokietaitis has played one more game than Acuff, it still doesn't take away from the fact that he's been dominant inside the paint over the past three games.

He almost single-handedly carried Texas' offense against BYU in the round of 64, scoring 23 points to go along with 16 rebounds against an A.J. Dybantsa-led Cougars team that was surging on both ends of the court heading into the matchup.

Vokietaitis then scored 17 against Gonzaga to help the Longhorns upset one of the most consistent teams in March Madness every single year. He also grabbed 9 rebounds and had 2 excellent assists in the game as well.

Going forward, Vokietaitis is going to have to be stout against Purdue's frontcourt, and there's a decent chance that Sean Miller is ironically going to have him focus on rebounding rather than scoring. The Boilermakers are surprisingly bad against opposing backcourts, and they've been one of the absolute worst teams in the league when it comes to defending the three-point shot.

We could very well see Dailyn Swain and Jordan Pope go off on Thursday night (finally), and if that happens, another upset might be in the cards for the Texas Longhorns in the 2026 NCAA Tournament.