Men’s College Basketball 2021-2022 Season Preview: Texas Longhorns

The Big 12 had a successful year in men’s college basketball in 2020 as the Baylor Bears closed out the season as the national champs. It was a dominant run, and they truly were the best team in college basketball.

The conference comes into the new year looking strong from top to bottom, but there was some drama in the offseason with a few teams planning to leave for the SEC. Texas and Oklahoma will be headed to the SEC in the near future, but for this year at least it’ll be business as usual.

Like many other conferences around the country, Big 12 teams took advantage of the expanded transfer portal and loaded up with all sorts of new faces. Figuring out rotations will be especially important for this group so let’s dive in and take our best crack at deciphering the best players for each squad.

In this one, Texas.

(Check out our full college basketball season preview!)

Texas Longhorns 2021-2022 Season Preview

2020-2021 record: 19-8 (11-6 Big 12), third in Big 12
Postseason: Lost in NCAA Tournament first round

Key Departures | Texas Longhorns

• Matt Coleman (playing professionally)
• Jericho Sims (NBA)
• Greg Brown (NBA)
• Kai Jones (NBA)

Key Additions | Texas Longhorns

• Marcus Carr (transferred from Minnesota)
• Dylan Disu (transferred from Vanderbilt)
• Tre Mitchell (transferred from UMass)
• Christian Bishop (transferred from Creighton)
• Timmy Allen (transferred from Utah)
• Devin Askew (transferred from Kentucky)
• Jaylon Tyson (top 50 recruit)

Returners | Texas Longhorns

• Andrew Jones (14.6 PPG/4.5 RPG/1 SPG)
• Courtney Ramey (12.2 PPG/3.2 RPG/3.9 APG/1 SPG)
• Jase Febres (5.2 PPG)

Texas Longhorns Outlook for 2021-2022

The Shaka Smart era in Texas is over, with the Longhorns bringing in well-respected coach Chris Beard from rival Texas Tech. Beard is going to have this program humming, and I can’t wait for the first time he is back in Lubbock. Beard attacked the transfer portal for his first season with the Longhorns, and this is another team with an endless amount of experience.

Holdovers from the previous regime are Andrew Jones, Courtney Ramey and Jase Febres. Ramey and Jones will be big time producers as they step out of Matt Coleman’s shadow. Febres is mostly a three-point gunner off the bench that had trouble staying healthy last year.

Marcus Carr will likely run the offense for this team, and while he was nearly a 20 PPG scorer at Minnesota last year, he won’t necessarily need to fill that same role here. There is an embarrassment of riches for Texas as far as talent goes, so it’ll be up to Carr to keep everyone fed and happy. Dylan Disu (15 PPG/9.2 RPG) and Tre Mitchell (18.8 PPG/7.2 RPG) are big-time frontcourt studs who are going to be straight up monsters in this conference. Timmy Allen (17.2 PPG/6.4 RPG) and Christian Bishop (11 PPG/6.4 RPG) will be key parts of the rotation as well whether they start or come off the bench.

(Check out our rankings of the top 100 teams and top 100 players for men’s college basketball in 2021-2022.)

Summary

I can see this team going a legit 10 deep consistently, which may not be ideal for fantasy purposes, but by the time we roll into late January things should be clearly defined. I’m most intrigued to see how Beard handles the frontcourt minutes among Disu, Mitchell, Allen and Bishop. Those four could start on most teams in the country, so it’s possible Texas has one of the best bench units in the all of D1.