No. 7 Texas faces higher expectations in Sean Miller’s second year

PORTLAND, OREGON - MARCH 18: Sean Miller of the Texas Longhorns smiles during practice day ahead of the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at Moda Center on March 18, 2026 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images) | Getty Images Second-year Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller has reason to smile — after signing the nation’s top incoming class, Miller’s team enters the 2026-27 season ranked No. 7 in the preseason AP Top 25 as the Longhorns try to build on the unexpected run to the Sweet 16 that ended with a last-season loss to the Purdue Boilermakers.Suddenly, a deep NCAA Tournament run is the expectation for a team that has Final Four potential.“We’re planning on getting to Detroit,” freshman guard Austin Goosby said in September.The confident assertion from the precocious former five-star prospect mere months after arriving on the Forty Acres stands in stark contrast to how Miller tempered expectations entering the 2025-26 season.Miller’s hire away from Xavier after a First Four win over Texas forced slap-dash roster build without the benefit of a developed plan. On-court preseason development was slowed by the rehabilitation of multiple players, late international arrivals, and two key injuries, including to center Matas Vokietaitis, who became the team’s breakout star.“We’re going to be a very difficult team to judge in the months of November and December in my best attempt, and I think all of our collective best attempt to be the best that we can be,” Miller said last year. “We have some limitations simply because we just haven’t been together and through experiences long enough — we just don’t have enough of those.”The schedule construction, including opening the season against Duke in Charlotte and playing in the Maui Invitational, left Miller frustrated because he didn’t believe that his team was well-situated to handle those challenges.A poor finish to the regular season and an embarrassing loss to open the SEC Tournament hardly foreshadowed the team’s March Madness success, but the Longhorns played their best basketball after landing a spot back in the First Four.Suddenly, Miller had proof of concept to sell when the transfer portal window opened in addition to a plan to execute formed in collaboration with general manager Chris Odgen.The top priority? Retaining Vokietaitis, whose trust in Miller and his staff and comfort level in Austin caused the big Lithuanian to turn down lucrative offers from other programs even though he never entered the portal.Texas moved quickly to land other top targets at need positions — point guard and power forward. The first pledge was Colorado transfer guard Isaiah Johnson, the team’s leader and quarterback after a big-time freshman season for the Buffaloes during which he averaged 16.9 points, 3.0 assists, 2.9 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 1.4 turnovers, shooting 37.8 percent from three and 82.1 percent from the line.“That competitive spirit, you have to have it. He comes from a great basketball family. You guys are probably aware of his dad, one of the elite trainers in the world,” Miller said. “And Isaiah grew up in the gym, loves the game, pours into it, gives a lot of himself, and has done so for a long, long period of time.”Johnson helped secure the rest of the transfer class, starting with TCU transfer David Punch, whose previously built a relationship with Miller when Xavier was a finalist in his high school recruitment. Punch averaged 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds for the Horned Frogs as a sophomore to earn a ranking as the No. 2 power forward in the portal.A hard-nosed defender, Punch should pair well with Vokietaitis and provide a massive upgrade at the four position — last year, Texas played wing Cam Heide out of position, which hurt the team’s ability to rebound, protect the rim, and finish around the basket.“He anchored their defense so many times, guarding a five, guarding a four,” Miller said of Punch. “He’s really quick, he’s smart, and he he actually protects the basket sometimes better than you think he does — his height isn’t real tall, but he’s got really long arms, quickness, and great instincts.”Texas also landed St. Mary’s transfer guard Mikey Lewis, who is out until December with a fractured foot, Tennessee transfer guard Amari Evans, another player Miller recruited at Xavier, and Auburn transfer wing Elyjah Freeman.Goosby was the headliner for the freshman class until the former No. 1 prospect in the 2027 class, forward Marcus Spears Jr., decided to reclassify in July and immediately enroll at Texas. Although Spears is only 17 years old, his addition immediately raised the team’s ceiling.“He gives us an added dimension of versatility and depth. I think every coach in any sport, you want depth, you want versatility, and Marcus does both of those things in that his style allows him to be on the court with virtually any of our other players, and I just think his talent, 6’9, and his ability to do a lot of things, it just it takes us to another level,” Miller said.Through preseason practice, the second-year Texas head coach is happy with how his team’s culture has begun to form.“We have a collective great attitude. We have guys that love the game. I think we have tremendous people that can get along with each other and with that, I think we all come together to try to accomplish something as a team. I think that they have an understanding that sacrifice and all the things that go into this is going to be a part of what we expect from them,” Miller saidMiller believes that guard play will drive the team, starting with Johnson and Goosby, who will play a large role as a primary ball handler, especially until Lewis returns from injury.With Vokietaitis the only returning contributor, this Texas team will be a work in progress as it learns how to play together, as evidenced by last weekend’s growing pains in the exhibition loss to No. 13 St. John’s at Madison Square Garden.And Spears will also surely have growing pains as an extremely young player, but like the rest of the team, he has the mental makeup to learn quickly.“Every day he’s pushed at a higher level to bring out that development and that improvement. With that, I think you have the mental makeup and the physical skills to be successful,” Miller said.It all adds up to an exciting mix of talent and potential, youth and experience, making this Texas team one of the more intriguing groups on the Forty Acres in the last 20 years because it possesses so many pieces that can come together to make the Longhorns a contender.“I do think we have a deeper, more versatile, more talented group than we would have had a year ago,” Miller said.If that group was good enough to will its way to the verge of an Elite Eight appearance by getting hot at the right time, what’s the upside for the 2026-27 team?“I do think we have a higher starting point than we did a year ago and I believe that we also have a higher ceiling that we can get to,” Miller said. “As you guys know, that doesn’t mean we’re going to get there. We have to get to that ceiling.”