Texas restarts under the leadership of Sean Miller

I doubt you’d find many people who thought the Rodney Terry experiment would last very long in Austin. When Chris Beard was fired for cause in December of 2022, and Terry took over, he handled the change

and process well. He forced AD Chris Del Conte’s hand as much as an interim coach can, but there never seemed to be any real excitement around keeping Terry.

I don’t think that’s Terry’s fault, he did what he could. But when the administration is never fully in your corner, they’re looking for the first out. So Terry never stood a chance.

Any level of success short of winning the conference likely wasn’t going to be enough to keep the administration off their tail. Then without the full faith and support of the administration, it’s also hard to overcome and win big. This isn’t some deep defense of Rodney Terry, but rather the story of a coach and a program who were doomed to never fully work out.

Now Del Conte has the guy he wants. We’re going to see how it all goes.

Previous SEC Previews

Texas Longhorns

Last season: 19 – 16 (6-12 in conference) #47
The Masses Prediction: 8th in conference, 8.71 – 9.29
SEC Media Pick: 9th in conference
Analytics Average: 9th in conference, 30th overall

HEAD COACH: Sean Miller | 1st Season, 0-0

Enter Sean Miller, according to some, the most accomplished coach to not make a Final Four. Miller spent his early coaching career under the guidance of Herb Sendek and Thad Matta, before taking over as the head coach at Xavier in 2004. In Cincinnati, Miller built upon what Matta had done and took it a step further in two more seasons. He finished with an Elite 8 and a Sweet 16 before taking the Arizona job in 2009.

At Arizona Miller was following in the aftermath of the end of the Lute Olson era and subsequent retirement. Arizona was one of the more storied western programs. From 1985 to 2009 the Wildcats never missed an NCAA Tournament, made four Final Fours, and won the 1997 title. Miller broke the tournament streak in his first season, but made the Elite 8 the next year, and still holds the program best finish in KenPom with a top 2 finish in 2014. That year Arizona had 5 NBA players on the roster.

But good things never last and Miller’s time in Tucson came crumbling down with the FBI investigation. His top assistant went to jail, and recruiting fell apart. But the NCAA wasn’t bringing charges for NCAA violations until the FBI’s case wrapped up. After three years of missing the NCAA tournament, Arizona fired Miller.

He quickly went back to Xavier in 2022, where he’s been fine. The Musketeers made two NCAA Tournaments, and earned a 3 seed in Miller’s first year. But the last two years were only so-so. Expectations in Austin are different than they are at Xavier, however.

The funny thing about expectations is how they can skew reality. Before Tommy Penders nobody really cared much about Texas basketball. But he made them competitive in the Southwest Conference. It was Rick Barnes who really got things going. He made 14 straight NCAA Tournaments and a Final Four from 1999 to 2012, before missing once in 2013, then going back for two more.

Since then Texas has been on a roller coaster. They pushed out Barnes for not being good enough, and brought in Shaka Smart, who just was not a good fit. Then Chris Beard burned hot, and then Rodney Terry. Terry was solid, but not good enough.

LOST PRODUCTION

6th in % minutes, 69.17% | 7th in % points, 69.03% | 6th in % possessions, 70.13%

Texas has a bit of a double whammy here. They not only replaced their coach but they also kept talent around! That’s unheard of in this day and age.

They try and stack the roster around lottery pick Tre Johnson last year, so a good amount of talent still left with Johnson off to the NBA. Second leading scorer Arthur Kaluma also played his last game in college, after seeing minutes at Kansas State and Creighton as well. Also lost to graduation were a pair of Indiana State transfers Julian Larry and Jayson Kent. And Virginia transfer Kadin Shedrick is also done.

Tramon Mark has enjoyed an interesting run in college, and he’ll finish it up with one last ride in Austin. He looked like a potential breakout candidate while at Houston, but instead transferred to Arkansas where he did break out, but on a bad team. The 2024 Razorbacks were a talented and disjoined mess on the floor, but Mark was a bright spot averaging over 16 points per game. He’s pretty durable, and when he’s making mid range jumpers he’s a late clock menace.

He’s back with Jordan Pope, a high scoring combo guard who sacrificed his own shot rate for others last year. At Oregon State he was super high usage, but backed off to around 20% usage last year. His overall efficiency improved as his shoot remained steady. Where Pope suffers is on the defensive end.

Chendall Weaver deserves a mention here because he doesn’t jump off the stat page, but anyone who watches Texas sees the energy and impact he has on the floor.

It was probably safe to think Texas would land a few more impact players out of the transfer portal. But the portal haul was just okay, EvanMiya.com ranked the class 7th in the SEC. Miller did convince his best talent at Xavier to join him, in Dailyn Swain. Only the third leading scorer, Swain’s versatility and athleticism make him an intriguing talent at the next level. But he’s not a guy you run a lot of offense through. He also brought Lassina Traore, who transferred from Long Beach State to Xavier last year but never played due to an injury.

The hope here is one of the front court options pans out, because this looks like a solid depth chart sans a Zach Freemantle type to log 25-30 minutes, defend, rebound, and be an offensive threat. Having a guy like that would take this roster up another level. As it is, Texas looks like a team that might be playing with some smaller lineups.

Wilcher and Weaver can provide the energy and defense they’re missing from Jordan Pope. Mark and Pope (hey that’s Kentucky’s coach!) are both ball dominant enough to generate some points, but there isn’t much else beyond those two. And both were secondary to Tre Johnson last year. Wilcher hasn’t really shown he can be a consistent scorer, and Swain is more comfortable as a 3&D type.

The rotation looks a little shallow, and focused on role guys. And with questions around the post and what they’ll get at the five spot, there are real reasons to be concerned about the Longhorns this season.

And we’ll get to find out about Texas real quick too as they open the season against Duke! Obviously that’s like a splash of cold water to your face, but there’s enough experience on the roster to not be overwhelmed by a game like that. You still expect Duke to win, but Texas should make them sweat a bit. After that, the schedule opens up nicely. Four Q4 games at home before you fly out to the Maui Invitational, which has the weakest field they’ve had in years. Texas should win their first two games which should set up a matchup against either USC or NC State.

Then they get Virginia in the ACC-SEC Challenge, a team who’s rebuilding also, plus a tough road game at UConn. So only a couple games of likely losses, and then the SEC schedule really breaks their way as well. All three home and home opponents are games they can win both games, even if they don’t. Realistically going 4-2 isn’t unheard of here and that could be enough to propel Texas in the NCAA Tournament. Because their home slate is also very manageable.

The trade off is the road schedule is brutal. Five of the six single road games are against teams projected in the top 20. Winning any of those games would be a feat.

THE RULING

It does feel a bit like the early season picks for the Longhorns think Texas will be roughly who they were last year but led by a better coach.

Fair or not, Miller does have more credit as a top level coach than Terry did. But there’s also this part, Miller cheated. A lot. He took advantage of a system where players weren’t allowed to be paid, under NCAA rules, and paid them when other schools didn’t. And since NIL has entered the picture for College players, Miller’s results have been mixed.

That doesn’t mean Miller is, or has ever been, a bad coach. He’s a good coach, but the difference now is that everyone is playing by the same rules and the league is full of good coaches.

Miller might have to do one of his best coaching jobs this year because Texas is playing from behind a bit. Collectively there just aren’t enough possession eaters on the roster for it to add up. It’s a bit math-y, but when you calculate each players usage rates and minutes played and combine the roster together, you don’t get to 100%. That means you’re counting on scaling up one or more of your roster. So Miller is likely going to need Mark and Pope to go back to their previous usage rates, and still hold onto efficiency.

Maybe the thought with both is more defined roles, and more stylized offensive touches are enough to build around. Pope was a top scorer at Oregon State two years ago, averaging 17.6 ppg. Mark was a 16.2 ppg scorer at Arkansas the year before last.

Scaling back players is far easier than scaling up. But if they’ve scaled up, and were scaled back, surely they can scale it up again? If not, Texas might be in trouble.

My Results: Texas Longhorns — 8th in Conference, 9-9

About the preview: a number of respected basketball bloggers were asked to submit one pick for the entire league schedule game by game. The game by game option allows us to account for the unbalanced schedule when addressing any kind of power rankings. Each set of picks are reflected in “the Masses” picks. Included in “the Masses” are various SEC media members who made picks at my request, as well as additional credit given to the analytics projections.

If you’d like to submit your picks, click here for the Google Form we used. If you want to know your results, send me an email.

Additionally, instead of relying solely on KenPom.com for the analytics site projections, we’re taking the average of the four main sites (EvanMiya.com, BartTorvik.com, Haslametrics.com, and KenPom.com) to give a closer consensus picture. These are weighted a touch for reliability.

The projections: This is new! In an attempt to be as accurate as we could be we increased the amount of analytics used to make individual projections which influenced how these teams slotted in order. Matt Watkins used an in-depth method for projecting the entire SEC transfer list, we then mixed in EvanMiya.com’s BPR projections, and BartTorvik.com’s preseason individual projections to round out the expected production based upon how each coach routinely uses his rotations.

GLOSSARY

* – an asterisk denotes a known walk-on player

GP – Games Played

%min – percentage of total available minutes played, does not account for time missed due to injury

%poss – percentage of team possessions the player is responsible for ending a possession, whether by making a shot, missing a shot not rebounded by the offense or committing a turnover. For returning players this is noted as a percentage of total team possessions. For newcomers it was total possessions when that player was on the floor, better known as Usage Rate.

ORtg – Offensive Rating, similar to a points per possession but averaged out over 100 possessions. So it’s how many points a player would score if they were responsible for 100 possessions.

BPR – Bayseian Performance Rating, a single player efficiency metric created by Evan Miyakawa to determine both offensive and defensive impact when a player is on the floor.

PAR – Points Above Replacement, a Rock M+ proprietary rating measuring projected on-off impact adjusted for time on the floor.

PPG – Points Per Game, RPG – Rebounds Per Game, APG – Assists Per Game: All traditional statistics used to measure player production.

For newcomer player rankings, we used EvanMiya.com’ s rankings for transfers, and 247sports.com ‘s Composite Rating for Freshmen and Junior College signees.