09. Texas Longhorns
2024-25 Record: 19-16 (6-12 SEC)
I haven’t seen a ton of love for the Longhorns this offseason - a ton has changed in Austin since the surprise NCAA Tournament bid. Texas moved on from Rodney Terry, saw 2024-25 SEC Rookie of the Year Tre Johnson (19.9 ppg) make the jump to the NBA, and lost two solid scorers in Arthur Kaluma (12.3 ppg) and Kadin Shedrick (8.8 ppg).
The Longhorns hired Sean Miller away from Xavier, who led the Musketeers to two NCAA Tournament appearances in his three seasons in Cincinnati. Miller brought with him to Austin one of his top players from last season in Dailyn Swain (11.0 ppg, 5.5 rpg). He also added Simeon Wilcher (8.0 ppg) from a great St. John’s team as well as Florida Atlantic big man Matas Vokietaitis (10.2 ppg, 5.4 rpg).
Miller will have his work cut out for him when it comes to Texas’s offense this season. The Longhorns have some solid returning scorers - Tramon Mark (10.6 ppg), Jordan Pope (11.0 ppg), and Chendall Weaver (6.4 ppg) - but the offense might not be quite as good as it was a year ago. It won’t help that this roster isn’t filled with many efficient perimeter scorers. Mark and Pope shot around 35 percent from deep last season, which isn’t terrible, but I’m confident that was mostly due to being secondary options in the offense.
While the defense wasn’t great a season ago, Simeon Wilcher should help improve Texas on that end of the court right away. Wilcher played just over 25 minutes per game for one of the best defenses in the country at St. John’s. Pairing him with Mark, Weaver, and Cam Heide from Purdue, and Miller should have a solid defense this season, especially as the SEC looks to take a slight step back as a conference.
Sean Miller is still a solid basketball coach. I loved his teams at Arizona, so I’m interested in seeing what he can do with the resources at Texas. I might be a little high on Texas, but I think that the Longhorns can do just enough to be competitive this season.