The early years (1906–36) 1906–13 The Texas men's basketball program began in 1906 under the direction of Scotland native
Magnus Mainland, a graduate engineering student and
lineman for the
Texas football team who organized, coached, and played on the university's first varsity basketball team. Mainland had been a nationally known basketball player as an undergraduate student at
Wheaton College (Illinois) prior to coming to UT. His Wheaton team placed second out of the three competing college basketball teams in the
1904 Summer Olympics in
St. Louis, the first
Olympic Games featuring the young sport (although only as a
demonstration sport). The Longhorns took the court for the first time on March 10, 1906, defeating the
Baylor Bears 27–17 on their new outdoor home court at Clark Field. Texas traveled to
Waco two weeks later for a three-game series with the Bears (also in their first year) and won all three games behind the play of Mainland. The Longhorns ultimately won seven of the eight games scheduled in the basketball program's inaugural season. Vining was supported in his efforts by the UT student newspaper,
The Daily Texan, which consistently advocated for the reinstatement of basketball—in part because the game was viewed as good physical training for football players in the latter sport's offseason. Language professor, German native, and Longhorn football head coach
W. E. Metzenthin (1909–11), who had argued strongly against the cancellation of basketball at UT, assumed head coaching duties for three seasons following the re-establishment of the program. The Longhorns played just 10 of their 27 games under Metzenthin (and only four of their final 18) on their home court, outdoor Clark Field—with its stubbornly uneven surface and total vulnerability to weather conditions Professor
Carl C. Taylor, also the Texas track coach, assumed basketball head coaching responsibilities for the 1913 season. Taylor arranged for the rental of the theater of the Ben Hur Temple and its conversion into a miniature basketball court and arena so that his team would have an indoor venue for home games and practice, with UT paying the
Shriners and
Scottish Rite Freemasons a sum of $75 for the season. Taylor came to UT with a strong reputation for basketball expertise, acquired during his years at
Drake University. His Texas team finished with an overall record of 8–4 and, beginning with a 70–7 rout of
Southwestern in
San Marcos, contributed the first three victories to what would become a national-record
winning streak. Bellmont's teams contributed 25 victories to a winning streak that would ultimately grow to 44 games. After his teams extended the UT winning streak to 28 games, Bellmont stepped away from coaching to focus on his work as athletic director and appointed
Roy Henderson to the still-unpaid Texas basketball head coaching position. Henderson's team recorded Texas' third consecutive undefeated season in 1916 to extend the total to 40 consecutive victories. Senior
center Clyde Littlefield, the linchpin of the three consecutive undefeated teams—and a towering figure in UT athletics history who would later coach the football team for seven seasons (1927–33), serve as the head coach of the UT track team from 1925 to 1960 (winning 25 conference championships), and found the
Texas Relays—would later receive retroactive recognition as Texas' first
consensus All-American in basketball for his play in the 1916 season. UT alumnus and former regent
Thomas Watt Gregory had begun campaigning a decade earlier for the construction of a permanent
gymnasium for the benefit of the student body and faculty—one in which the basketball team would be able to play and practice as well—but fundraising for the $75,000 project had lagged, even more so with Gregory's departure from Austin to serve as the
U.S. Attorney General under
Woodrow Wilson in 1914. The project was shelved, but the need remained acute, and, following the 1916 season, the UT Athletic Council decided to allocate $8,500 for the construction of the temporary and rudimentary all-wood Men's Gym, which was finished for the second game of the next season. Theo Bellmont hired
Eugene Van Gent from
Missouri in 1916 to lead the Texas football, basketball, and track programs. Van Gent's single basketball team at Texas recorded a 13–3 overall mark and won the Southwest Conference championship for the third consecutive year, with the season highlighted by the first-ever basketball games between Texas and the
Texas A&M Aggies, following the resumption of athletic relations between the two schools. The Longhorns began the basketball rivalry with wins in both home games and in one of two games in
College Station. Van Gent's 1917 Texas team also added the final four wins to the Texas winning streak that had begun in 1913 before suffering a 24–18 loss to
Rice in Austin. Van Gent departed after coaching for one season in each sport—winning the conference championship in both—to join the military following the United States' entry into the First World War in April 1917. Following Van Gent's single year as head coach, Roy Henderson returned to coach Texas for two additional seasons. With several players from the 1917 team having left for military service, the 1918 Longhorn basketball team had only one returning player in sophomore Al DeViney. Henderson scouted talent in the intramural ranks and nonetheless assembled a team that finished 14–5 overall and missed winning Texas' fourth consecutive SWC championship by a single game. Henderson guided the Longhorns to a 17–3 overall record in his final season (1919), splitting the four-game series with the second-place Aggies to win the SWC championship—Texas' fourth basketball conference championship during the five years the conference had existed.
Berry M. Whitaker—who had come to the university to develop and direct one of the nation's first intramural programs, and who would also coach the Texas football team for the next three seasons—agreed to serve as head coach for the season. Texas, with seven returning lettermen and war veterans who had played in 1916 and 1917, was once again expected to contend for the conference championship in 1920, but seven players missed significant parts of the season due to injury and illness. After winning their first five games, the Longhorns lost six of eleven to finish at 10–6 overall—Texas' worst season in nine years. Theo Bellmont designated Whitaker as the Longhorn football head coach after the departure of
Bill Juneau, and Bellmont himself would assume basketball head coaching duties for two more seasons (1921 and 1922), finishing with a 13–5 overall record in 1921. Bellmont then led Texas to its first 20-win season during his final year. The Longhorns finished 20–4 overall and 14–4 in conference play in 1922. Missing five players to injury and grades in the latter part of the season, including the SWC's leading scorer in Phillip Peyton, Texas nonetheless entered its final game with a chance to win the SWC championship for the first time since 1919. The Longhorns fell short in College Station against the Aggies, then coached by future Texas football head coach and Athletic Director
Dana X. Bible, who claimed their third consecutive SWC championship. Bellmont returned to his administrative responsibilities for good following the 1922 season, finishing his basketball coaching career with a 58–9 overall record; his .866 winning percentage remains the highest of any coach in program history. The protracted selection of
E. J. "Doc" Stewart from
Clemson University as the head football coach created further turmoil and distraction when newspapers reported that he would also be charged with leading the basketball team, thus rendering Romney a lame duck with seven games to play. Texas entered the season expected to finish third or fourth in conference play behind
TCU, Oklahoma A&M, and possibly Texas A&M. Despite its unblemished record, Texas was still predicted to lose at least one game to the Aggies in College Station. The Longhorns instead managed 24–14 and 17–11 victories over the Aggies to finish as the last undefeated team in Texas and SWC history at 23–0. Senior guard
Abb Curtis would later receive retroactive recognition for the 1924 season as UT's second-ever consensus first-team All-American in basketball.
Fred Walker (1927–31) coached the Longhorns following E.J. Stewart's dismissal, producing a 51–30 combined record during his four-year stint as head coach. Walker led Texas to an 18–2 overall record and 10–2 conference record during his second season. He was terminated following the Longhorns' disappointing 9–15 season in his fourth year.
Ed Olle (1931–34), who had played for Texas under Stewart, coached Texas for three seasons after Walker's dismissal, leading the Longhorns to a 22–1 overall mark and a conference championship during his second year. During his third year, Olle signaled that he would resign at the end of the season and recommended that freshman team and assistant varsity coach
Marty Karow take his place. Karow (1934–36) would direct Texas to a combined 31–16 record over his two years as head coach. His relationship with Texas Athletic Director and
Longhorn football head coach
Jack Chevigny marked by increasing friction, Karow resigned as head coach in the summer of 1936 and was hired shortly thereafter as the
baseball head coach for the
United States Naval Academy.
Jack Gray & H. C. "Bully" Gilstrap era (1937–51) Pre-war Jack Gray years (1937–42) Only two seasons removed from his senior year at Texas, in which he earned consensus first-team All-American honors, and with only one year as an assistant coach with the Texas freshman team, the immensely popular
Jack Gray was hired as the fourteenth Texas men's basketball head coach in the summer of 1937 at the age of 25. After his first two teams combined for a 24–21 record, Gray's 1938–39 team posted a 19–6 overall mark and won the
Southwest Conference championship outright for UT's first basketball conference title in six years. The season featured the then-most anticipated intersectional matchup in school history, as
Phog Allen's
Kansas Jayhawks came to Austin. The Jayhawks appeared to be on their way to winning the first game until the Longhorns rallied late in the second half for a 36–34 victory. The second game the following night proceeded more in line with expectations, with Kansas winning handily, 49–35. Following the series against KU, Texas traveled to
Oklahoma City to compete for the first time in the
All-College tournament, which had begun in 1937. The 1939 edition of the holiday tournament featured 32 teams from the Southwest and Midwest. Instead, Texas handed SMU its first defeat of the conference season, 33–27. The Longhorns defeated the
TCU Horned Frogs and the
Texas A&M Aggies in their remaining two conference road games before winning all five SWC contests in Austin, concluding with a 66–32 rout of the Aggies. With a nine-game conference winning streak, Texas had finished at 10–2 in SWC play to claim sole possession of the SWC championship. The Longhorns were one of eight teams to qualify for the
inaugural postseason NCAA tournament, where they fell 56–41 to the
"Tall Firs" of the
Oregon Webfoots (later known as the Ducks), the eventual NCAA champion. Texas lost the West Regional third-place game to
Utah State, 51–49. Hopes and expectations for the 1939–40 team were high, as all but one of the key players returned from the previous season's SWC champion and NCAA Tournament squad. Texas opened the season with seven wins by an average of 18 points (and by no fewer than 11), including two wins over the
Texas Tech Red Raiders in a home series that marked the first meetings between the two schools in basketball. Gray was intent both upon raising national recognition of the program and upon toughening his team in the early part of the season for the conference slate ahead, and to both ends he sought to involve the Longhorns in intersectional competition against prominent teams in high-profile venues across the country. Continuing on to Philadelphia, Texas fell 47–37 to Temple, winners of the first
National Invitation Tournament two years prior. Having lost one of two road contests against Arkansas and a road game against SMU in overtime, Texas entered the penultimate game of the season at 18–3 and tied at 8–2 in conference play with the preseason conference favorite Rice Owls—a team that the Longhorns had defeated on Rice's home court earlier in the season, 50–46. In front of a raucous pro-Texas crowd of more than 8,000 fans packed into
Gregory Gymnasium, the Longhorns suffered a one-point loss to the Owls, 42–41, to see their hopes of winning a second consecutive outright SWC championship dashed and their chances of even sharing the championship greatly diminished. Another painful defeat followed in the final game of the season, as the Longhorns fell to a 10–11 Texas A&M team in
College Station, 53–52, on a long running shot from the Aggies' backup center in the final seconds.
Gilstrap as interim head coach (1942–45) In addition to both coaches, three starters from the 1941–42 team had departed for service in the war. Accordingly, expectations for the 1942–43 Longhorns were low. Despite losses of coaches and players that were projected as insurmountable hardships, Texas defied expectations, winning 13 of its first 16 games. Gilstrap credited Gray and Price with encouragement and advice from afar and his players with a degree of cooperation he said he had not seen before. Gilstrap explained, "There were a lot of things I didn't know about the system, and the boys realized that. They came to the rescue. They've been assistant coaches as well as players. We've just been trying to work it out together." After stumbling on a swing through
North Texas late in the season with losses to TCU and SMU, the Longhorns concluded the regular season with victories over the
Baylor Bears and Texas A&M to win a share of the SWC championship and qualify for the
NCAA tournament for the second time. The Longhorns drew the Tournament co-favorite
Washington Huskies for their first game. After falling behind by 13 points in the first half, Texas came back to win 59–55 behind 30 points from
John Hargis and 15 from Buck Overall to advance to its first-ever
Final Four, where it drew the other Tournament co-favorite, the
Wyoming Cowboys. It was then the Longhorns who surrendered an early 13-point lead, as the bigger and stronger Cowboys regrouped to win 58–54, on their way to defeating the
Georgetown Hoyas 46–34 for the NCAA championship.
Post-war Jack Gray years (1945–51) Gray took charge of a 1945–46 Texas team that returned only five lettermen—none of whom had ever played under him—and which had very little size, as both forward John Hargis and Robert Summers would be out for the entire season. Little was expected of the Longhorns that season, but Texas managed to win its first seven games. The team's grave liabilities in defense and rebounding against bigger teams were never more evident that year than against defending—and soon-to-be-repeating—national champion
Oklahoma A&M (later renamed
Oklahoma State University) and its 7'0" All-American center,
Bob "Foothills" Kurland. Kurland and the Aggies (later known as the Cowboys) dominated the diminutive Longhorns from start to finish, winning 69–34 in the opening round of the eight-team
All-College tournament in
Oklahoma City. The Longhorns dropped the second game of the tournament to fellow SWC member Rice, 55–52. The Longhorns opened a new season of SWC play with a road win over TCU. Texas was not expected to fare significantly better in two consecutive games against the towering Arkansas Razorbacks in
Fayetteville than it had against Oklahoma A&M. The Longhorns acquitted themselves well in a close loss in the first game, 55–47, but the pre-game prognostications came to fruition the following night, as Arkansas routed Texas 90–63 in the second contest. After having lost four of five games, Texas posted an 8–3 record in its final 11 contests to finish with a respectable mark of 16–7 and a third-place conference finish, significantly exceeding preseason expectations for the undersized 1945–46 team. Discussions had begun about the projected need to build a larger arena for UT basketball team. Longhorn basketball had grown significantly in popularity under Gray and Gilstrap's guidance. Sellouts had not been particularly common during the war years, but the university was growing rapidly, and if Texas basketball continued to achieve success, a looming capacity problem was clearly foreseeable. Football and basketball were growing in popularity nationwide, and a spending and building boom was expected to take place in athletics departments around the country. No specific plans for basketball took shape at UT, but discussions of a larger gym or arena continued over the next three years. Returning all but one top player and adding some military veterans and players from the freshman team, Gray's 1946–47 Texas team was thought to have a legitimate chance of winning the SWC championship, along with Arkansas, SMU, and defending SWC champion Baylor. Future
Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame member and five-time
NBA champion guard
Slater Martin and forward John Hargis returned to the team to join guards Roy Cox and Al Madsen, who had returned the previous season. All four men, along with three other of that year's letterwinners, had served in the war. Martin, Cox, and Madsen were dubbed the "Mighty Mice." Not content to play only overmatched local teams for the remainder of the nonconference slate, Gray wanted to harden his team for the season ahead, and the Longhorns next embarked upon a 10-day, 4,000-mile train trip to face
Canisius in
Buffalo,
Long Island in New York City, and
DePaul in
Chicago. Before returning to Austin, the 7–0 Longhorns stopped in Oklahoma City to play in the All-College Tournament. Texas dominated the
Missouri Tigers 65–46 before falling to Oklahoma A&M, the two-time defending national champion, in the semifinal by a single point, 40–39. The Longhorns defeated the
Oklahoma Sooners in the third-place game the following night by a score of 62–50. Texas was only occasionally challenged during the remainder of the regular season, winning its three remaining nonconference games by 29, 24, and 12 points and seven of its first 10 conference games by 12 or more points (and the first 10 SWC contests by an average of 16.6 points). The Longhorns entered the final weekend of the conference season needing only one win in two games against the second-place Razorbacks. In front of more than 8,000 fans at Gregory Gym, Arkansas led for most of the first game before Slater Martin led a late surge to secure the win and the outright conference championship for Texas, 49–44. The pressure to win the SWC championship thus relieved, the Longhorns easily dispatched the Razorbacks the following night, 66–46, to finish the regular season 24–1 overall and 12–0 in SWC play for their first undefeated conference season since Doc Stewart's 1923–24 team finished 23–0. Texas traveled to
Kansas City to face Wyoming in the first game of the
NCAA tournament. Four players from each team had been on the 1943 teams that faced off in the Final Four on Wyoming's way to the NCAA championship. Texas started the season 6–0—highlighted by a 51–42 win over the
Texas Tech Red Raiders and a 51–30 blowout of the
LSU Tigers, who proved too slow to handle the speed of another fast and quick Longhorn team—before embarking on another road trip to the Northeast, stopping in New York for the third time in two seasons. In a rematch of the previous season's national third-place game, Texas faced the CCNY Beavers in Madison Square Garden. Texas surrendered an 18-point first-half lead but withstood a late CCNY rally, holding on to win, 61–59. Texas opened conference play 5–0, pushing its overall record to 16–1, before suffering three consecutive losses to Baylor, Rice, and Arkansas to see its prospects for defending its SWC crown dashed. The Longhorns recovered to win the second game against the Razorbacks in their weekend trip to Fayetteville, 54–43, to halt the losing streak. By the time of the Longhorns' next contest, against Baylor, the Bears stood at 11–0 in conference play and had already secured the SWC championship. Although Texas could do no better than second place, more than 8,000 fans squeezed into 7,500-seat Gregory Gym to see the Longhorns hand the Bears their only defeat of the conference season, 32–29, after Al Madsen added a layup and a free throw in the final 20 seconds. The win over Baylor landed Texas an invitation to the
1948 NIT with two conference games remaining.
Uneven recovery (1959–67) Between coaches
Harold Bradley, hired as head coach in 1959, and
Leon Black, who directed the basketball team from 1967 to 1976, the Longhorns played in four
NCAA Tournaments, two under each coach, as a result of winning the
Southwest Conference five times (three times outright) in 17 years. Bradley's 1962–63 team again won the SWC outright and reached 20 wins for the first time since
Jack Gray's 1947–48 Longhorns. Texas advanced to the
NCAA tournament and defeated the
Texas Western Miners by a score of 65–47 in its opening game to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where the Longhorns fell 73–68 to
Ed Jucker's defending two-time national champion and fifth-consecutive Final Four participant
Cincinnati Bearcats. Texas would go on to win the Midwest Regional third-place game against future Texas head coach
Abe Lemons'
Oklahoma City Chiefs by a score of 90–81. The Longhorns finished the season ranked No. 12 in the Coaches Poll. The 1964–65 Longhorns tied SMU for the conference championship but lost the tiebreaker for the conference's
NCAA tournament berth and thus did not participate in postseason play. In the following two seasons, Bradley's Texas teams posted overall records of 12–12 and 14–10. Bradley retired following the 1966–67 season. He finished with an overall record of 123–75 (.631) and a conference record of 73–39 (.651) as Texas head coach. The Longhorns defeated the
Houston Cougars (who had been approved for SWC membership in 1971, but did not play a conference basketball schedule until 1975–76) 85–74 to advance to the Sweet Sixteen, where they fell to the
Kansas State Wildcats by a score of 66–55. Texas also lost the regional third place game 100–70 to
Southwestern Louisiana (now the
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, branded "Louisiana" for intercollegiate athletics), but that game, plus all Ragin' Cajun tournament games in 1972 and
1973, were scrubbed from NCAA records when USL was handed a two-year
death penalty in August 1973 (the game vs. USL was not a forfeit win for Texas). After posting a 13–12 overall record in 1972–73, Black's Longhorns recorded three consecutive losing seasons, each with fewer wins and more defeats than the one before. Black's 1973–74 team managed to win the SWC championship outright, even with an overall record of 12–15, and advanced to the
NCAA tournament, where the Longhorns fell to the
Creighton Bluejays in the first round, 77–61. Following 10–15 and 9–17 seasons in 1974–75 and 1975–76, respectively, Black resigned from his position as Texas head coach. Black finished with an overall record of 106–121 (.467) and a record of 63–65 (.492) in conference play. Lemons and fellow Oklahoman Royal agreed to a five-year contract worth roughly $30,000 per year, and Lemons was subsequently introduced as the twentieth Longhorn head basketball coach in the program's 72 seasons. Thanks to his exuberant personality, quick and acerbic wit, and rare quote-making skill, the
cigar-smoking Abe Lemons' growing status as a
fan favorite anticipated any of his notable accomplishments in basketball at Texas. Though he and his staff inherited two players that would play central roles on his most successful Texas teams in freshman
forward and Los Angeles high school player of the year
Ron Baxter and
sophomore Auburn transfer
Jim Krivacs, After starting the season with a 6–9 record, Texas managed a six-game winning streak against some of the conference's weaker teams before stumbling to a 1–4 finish over the final five games. Despite Lemons' dejected mood following the final game of the season, a loss to
Baylor in the final men's basketball game in
Gregory Gymnasium, his first team had posted a four-game improvement in its season record over the 9–17 squad of the prior year, finishing 13–13 on the season. After a one-point loss in the opening game against
Southern California in Los Angeles, Texas inaugurated the $37-million, 16,231-seat
Special Events Center with an 83–76 victory over the
Oklahoma Sooners, the first of eight straight wins. Texas lost 65–56 to fifth-ranked, defending national champion
Marquette before posting another nine straight victories, including a 75–69 upset of third-ranked and eventual
Final Four participant
Arkansas, with its famed "Triplets" (guards
Sidney Moncrief,
Ron Brewer, and
Marvin Delph). The win over
Eddie Sutton's Razorbacks vaulted Lemons' Longhorns to a No. 15 ranking in the Associated Press Poll, Texas' first appearance in the poll since a one-week showing at No. 20 in 1949, the inaugural season of the AP basketball poll. Texas would finish the regular season ranked No. 12 in the AP poll with records of 22–4 overall and 14–2 in conference play, sharing the
Southwest Conference Championship with the Razorbacks. Despite the impressive season, Texas saw its hopes of playing in the 32-team
NCAA tournament dashed in a two-point loss to
Houston in the
SWC Tournament Final. Houston claimed the
automatic bid to the Tournament, Arkansas received an
at-large bid, and the Longhorns were left to accept a bid to the
1978 National Invitation Tournament. Texas would storm through the tournament to reach the NIT Championship Game against the
North Carolina State Wolfpack, defeating
Temple,
Nebraska, and
Rutgers by an average of over 17 points in the first three rounds. The Longhorns posted an easy 101–93 victory over the Wolfpack to win the NIT Championship behind 22, 26, and 33 points, respectively, from
point guard Johnny Moore and 1978 NIT Co-MVPs Ron Baxter and Jim Krivacs. After the end of the 1977–78 season, Abe Lemons was named National Coach of the Year by the
National Association of Basketball Coaches. Lemons remains the only men's basketball coach in UT history to earn National Coach of the Year honors. With its four leading scorers returning, Texas entered the
1978–79 season with a No. 6 ranking in the AP poll and as the near-unanimous favorite to win the SWC championship. The Longhorns struggled early, beginning the season 7–4 and falling out of the AP rankings after a 21-point road defeat to
Bill Cartwright and the
San Francisco Dons. A home loss to 14th-ranked Arkansas was the lone blemish during the 13-game stretch, a game that featured a shouting and shoving episode, famous in SWC lore, between Lemons and Eddie Sutton after Sutton had admonished Texas player Johnny Moore on the court. Police and assistant coaches intervened, but Lemons told the media following the game that if Sutton dared to address his players again, he would "tear his Sunday clothes" and "liquidate his a**." Struggling
SMU dealt Texas a shocking defeat in the final game of the regular season, depriving the Longhorns of sole possession of the SWC crown and forcing them to share the conference championship with Arkansas for the second straight season. Following a 39–38 loss to the ninth-ranked Razorbacks in the SWC Tournament Final, Texas received a No. 4 seed and a bye to the second round in the
1979 NCAA tournament. Texas fell to No. 5-seeded Oklahoma in the tournament to finish the season with a 21–8 overall record and a No. 15 final ranking in the
UPI Coaches' Poll. The 1979–80 Texas Longhorns returned only one starter, forward Ron Baxter.
LaSalle Thompson, 6'10"
center and future Longhorn great, joined the program as a freshman. finished his UT career as the then-all-time school leader in both scoring and
rebounding. The 1980–81 Longhorn team carried little in the way of preseason expectations of success. Even before the season began, the program was embroiled in controversy and turmoil. Lemons had summarily fired assistant Steve Moeller, leading to a caustic public feud between the two men, with each blaming the other for recent disappointing
recruiting results. Moeller charged that Lemons' lack of inhibition with regard to public and private criticism of players was damaging the program. Only one of the four players signed in the 1981 class—6'9" forward
Mike Wacker—was considered a coveted prospect. Texas opened with a home loss to
Pacific. The regular season's zenith, a two-point win over Arkansas in Fayetteville on January 12, did nothing to reverse the team's downward trajectory, with losses to
TCU, SMU,
North Texas,
Rice following shortly thereafter. The Longhorns stumbled to a 10–14 overall record with two conference games remaining. Lemons' habitual sarcasm and indiscriminately acid tongue, heretofore endearing to fans if not academic administrators, began to draw criticism, with some citing his routinely quippish comments as evidence that he failed to take his team's poor performance sufficiently seriously. Nonetheless, just as Lemons began to face notable fan frustration and criticism for the first time at Texas, his team began an unexpected run of late-season success. Lemons' team managed to win the two remaining regular season games as well as three of four games in the SWC Tournament—including a 76–73 victory over No. 15 Arkansas in the semifinal round—to avoid finishing with a losing record. The end-of-season success quelled discontent for the time being, with fans and
commentators pointing to the return of LaSalle Thompson, Mike Wacker, and a healthier and more experienced supporting cast as reason for renewed confidence about the near future and optimism about the program's prospects. The news met with surprise and outrage from players and fans. Lemons, who, despite some struggles, had presided over the resurrection of Texas basketball during the preceding six seasons, professed shock. Even with the collapse following Wacker's injury, there had been no indications that his job was in jeopardy. Privately, though, Dodds had faced pressure from important administrators and
boosters to dismiss the popular Lemons ever since he had arrived at Texas the prior autumn. A powerful faction of UT officials and donors felt that Lemons was presiding over an undisciplined program and that he had become excessively and irresponsibly outspoken. His refusal to enforce a curfew or to punish players for missing
practices, for instance, had already drawn criticism in the past. A lack of academic progress during his time at Texas was another reflection of a shortage of discipline and another cause for embarrassment for UT officials. Only one player that Lemons recruited to Austin
graduated during his tenure. Lemons remained a popular figure among fans, but his support among administrators and powerful donors had dissipated. Following the end of the season, the UT
Office of the President and the
Board of Regents directed Dodds to fire Lemons, who had two years at $52,000 per year remaining on his contract. Texas players petitioned in support of Barry Dowd, a long-time
Lemons assistant, for the vacant coaching position, but Dodds and UT
administrators were intent on severing all connections to the Lemons era. Nicknamed "Kaiser Bob" by Longhorn fans for his harshly disciplinarian approach, LaSalle Thompson, who was considering bypassing his senior season but was as yet undecided at the time Weltlich was hired, ultimately left for the
1982 NBA draft. More than a dozen Longhorn players would leave the program during Weltlich's first three years, and several would make negative comments about his grueling practices and his reliance on criticism and insults as a motivational tactic upon departing. Nevertheless, even Wendlandt would leave the program after the fall semester of his senior year. Texas ended the season with losses in 17 of its last 18 games and with a 13-game losing streak. The Longhorns' 6–22 overall record and 1–15 mark in SWC play represent what remain the most total and conference losses incurred in one season in program history. Weltlich's next three teams posted yearly improvements in overall records, although the 1983–84 Longhorns did so by the margin of a single game over the prior year, finishing the season 7–21. Texas managed four wins against Division I competition, with a 62–61 road win over Utah in non-conference play, to end a 21-game road losing streak, and three wins against conference competition—two against Baylor and one over Rice. The Longhorns were also generally more competitive in their many defeats, with their 13 SWC losses coming by an average of 15.0 points, for a one-third reduction in the average margin of defeat from the previous season. Texas played respectably in two losses to eventual second-consecutive national runner-up Houston, losing by 11 to the No. 7 Cougars in Houston and by the same margin to No. 5 Houston in Austin. After trailing 19th-ranked Arkansas 45–27 at halftime in Austin, Texas narrowed the Razorbacks' lead to 68–66 in the final minute before Arkansas added two final points to secure the win. Nonetheless, the 1983–84 season saw a number of particularly lopsided defeats, with a 103–72 loss to SMU and a 74–47 loss to Texas Tech representing what remain the third- and ninth-worst home losses in program history. As fan criticism of Weltlich began to mount, Dodds professed to be "losing no sleep over basketball at UT" and said, "I don't think there's any question that the direction Bob has taken is the right one. No one expected this to be easy." The 1984–85 Longhorn team would more than double the win total of the previous year's team, posting 15–13 overall and 7–9 conference records. The Longhorns were also significantly more competitive in almost every game they played. Texas lost a hard-fought contest to No. 9 LSU in Baton Rouge in the third game of the season, 87–79, and battled eventual SWC champion SMU closely during the conference season, falling 54–46 to the No. 3 Mustangs in Austin and 64–60 to No. 9 SMU in the second-to-last game of the conference slate. Of the Longhorns' 12 regular-season losses, only two came by margins greater than nine points (with 14 points being the largest margin of defeat). Texas also achieved its first victory over an NCAA Tournament-bound team under Weltlich, defeating
Pac-10 Conference champion
Southern California in the final game of the regular season, 71–70. The Longhorns were genuinely uncompetitive only in their final game of the year, a 66–46 loss to Arkansas in the SWC Tournament. The 1985–86 team—which finished with a 19–12 overall record and a share of the SWC championship—marked the zenith of Weltlich's tenure at Texas. The Longhorns posted a 3–2 record in their first five games, losing on the road 67–66 to
South Alabama and in an 84–62 blowout at
Southern California. After a home win over
Oral Roberts, the Longhorns traveled to Norman to face an eighth-ranked and 7–0 Oklahoma. Texas pushed the Sooners to overtime and led 90–89 with 28 seconds remaining, but an OU steal and two subsequent scores led the Sooners to a 93–92 win. Weltlich bemoaned his team's decision-making in the backcourt, commenting in the postgame press conference, "We've lost our last two road games in the last second, and we haven't learned from it." Texas returned from Norman at 3–3 to face faced ninth-ranked and 7–0 LSU in Austin. The Longhorns led 35–28 at halftime, but the Tigers recovered to win, 72–65. LSU head coach
Dale Brown described the game as his team's most difficult to date and the Texas team as sound in fundamentals. After two more home wins, Texas traveled to
Atlanta to play in the Cotton States Classic. After a 35-point loss to No. 7
Georgia Tech in the opening round—in what remains the second-largest margin of defeat in a neutral-site game in program history—Texas posted its third one-point loss of the season in the consolation game against 20th-ranked DePaul, falling 63–62. The Longhorns had again built and then surrendered an early lead, having opened a 10-point advantage over the Blue Demons in the first half. Texas opened conference play with four consecutive wins, including its first win over Arkansas under Weltlich, before falling 55–54 to the Texas A&M Aggies in College Station. After a 63–56 loss to SMU in Dallas, Texas won eight consecutive conference contests, including a 61–57 win over Arkansas in Fayetteville–Texas's first win at
Barnhill Arena since 1981–completing Texas's first season sweep of the Razorbacks since 1974. On February 15, Texas recorded its first sold-out home game since Abe Lemons' final year as head coach in a 58–47 win over Texas A&M. The Longhorns suffered their fifth one-point defeat of the season against TCU in Dallas in their penultimate conference game, falling 55–54 as Horned Frog guard
Jamie Dixon scored on an off-balance, 30-foot jump shot at the buzzer. Texas followed up the loss to TCU with its sixth one-point loss of the season—and third out of four total losses in SWC games—against Texas Tech in Austin in the conference finale to surrender sole possession of first place in conference play and ultimately share the SWC championship with TCU and Texas A&M. After a semifinal loss to A&M in the conference tournament, the Longhorns were invited to the
1986 NIT—the Longhorns first postseason appearance under Weltlich, and the first since the 1979–80 season. Texas defeated
New Mexico in the first round, 69–66, before falling to eventual NIT champion
Ohio State in the second round, 71–65. The Longhorns opened the 1986–87 season with a one-point loss to No. 17
North Carolina State, 69–68, and an 80–68 loss to
Alaska Anchorage. In its third game of the season, Texas stunned No. 2-ranked and defending national champion
Louisville, 74–70, the highest-ranked opponent the Longhorns had defeated in school history. The victory presaged little about the season to come, however, as Texas finished 14–17 overall and 7–9 in SWC contests, for its third losing season in five seasons under Weltlich. Six of the Longhorns' seven victories in conference play came by five points or fewer, while six of the nine conference losses came by 10 points or more. For the first time since the 1974–75 season, Leon Black's second to last as head coach, Texas faced no ranked opponents during the 1987–88 season. Nonetheless, the Longhorns finished 6–6 in non-conference play, losing to all three eventual
NCAA tournament participants they faced—falling 100–83 at
Iowa State, 80–75 at home to
Utah State, and 71–70 at
Chattanooga—and losing 86–74 at home to New Mexico, the one eventual
NIT participant they faced. Texas suffered its most lopsided non-conference defeat, 85–56, on the road at the hands of a
Miami (FL) team that would miss the postseason entirely. Texas posted a 10–6 record in SWC play, tying for fourth place, and lost the first game of the conference tournament to Houston, 72–57. For the fifth time in Weltlich's six seasons, Texas failed to advance to a postseason tournament. Four days after the loss to Houston, Weltlich was dismissed with two years remaining on his contract. Weltlich compiled a 77–98 (.440) record during six seasons as the head coach at Texas. None of his six teams managed an appearance in the NCAA Tournament; only the 1985–86 team participated in postseason competition, losing in the second round of the NIT. With the combination of poor overall results and an ultra-slow-tempo style of play that fans found unappealing, attendance plummeted from the lofty marks achieved during the tenure of the popular Lemons to an average of barely more than 4,000 fans per game during Weltlich's final season (far below the turnout for
Jody Conradt's
Lady Longhorns teams at that time).
Tom Penders era (1988–98) Hired from the
University of Rhode Island on April 6, 1988, to replace Weltlich as the Texas head coach,
Tom Penders rapidly revitalized the moribund Longhorn basketball program. Months before coaching in his first game at Texas, Penders set about reviving fan enthusiasm for Longhorn men's basketball. He canvassed the state, speaking to every University of Texas alumni chapter and booster club in Texas. Penders called his team the "Runnin' Horns," and he promised an exciting, fast-paced style of play that would stand in stark contrast to the basketball on display during the prior six seasons. Early on, Penders promised Texas fans, "We'll run after made shots, missed shots, turnovers, timeouts, TV timeouts, you name it. We'll run and pressure and play 94 feet of defense." Unlike his entrance, Weltlich's departure did not result in an exodus of players from the program. Penders' first team returned four starters from the previous season, and two talented transfers—
Lance Blanks and
Joey Wright—gained eligibility, giving Texas a starting five with three future NBA Draft picks and a fourth starter who would play in the NBA. Penders led his first team to a 25–9 overall record, marking the first 20-win season in ten years at Texas and the then-second-highest win total in school history. He quickly validated his promise to bring high-scoring offense to Texas: in the first nine games of the 1988–89 season, the Longhorns scored more than 100 points five times. In Bob Weltlich's 175 games as head coach, Texas had never scored 100 or more points in a game—and had only scored 90 or more points on four occasions (twice requiring an overtime period to reach that mark). The Longhorns opened the season with an 8–1 record before traveling to Oklahoma City to compete in the four-team All-College Tournament. Texas players openly marveled at the wholesale change in coaching philosophy from prior seasons to one that now encouraged them to shoot in large volumes, and some expressed eagerness to see how they would fare against elite competition with their new style of play. Texas defeated the OSU Cowboys 85–84 in the first contest behind 32 points from sophomore guard Joey Wright and two late free throws from junior guard Lance Blanks, who had transferred from
Virginia. The win matched Texas in the tournament final against a high-scoring, sixth-ranked Oklahoma Sooners team only nine months removed from a four-point loss as a prohibitive favorite in the
1988 national championship game.
Billy Tubbs' Sooners revealed the distance that remained between Texas and college basketball's elite teams, building a 63–37 halftime lead en route to an easy 124–95 win. Texas won six games in conference play by five or fewer points to finish in second place in the SWC with a 12–4 record, with two losses to Arkansas and one loss apiece to Houston and Texas A&M. Interspersed among the conference contests were games against NCAA Tournament-bound
Vanderbilt, which Texas lost by a score of 94–79, and
Miami (FL), which the Longhorns won easily, 123–104. Texas defeated both SMU and TCU in overtime in the SWC Tournament to advance to the final, in which Arkansas defeated the Longhorns for the third time in 10 weeks. Texas was subsequently selected as a No. 11 seed to play in the
NCAA tournament for the first time in 10 seasons, where the Longhorns would defeat the sixth-seeded
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets, 76–70, for the program's first NCAA Tournament victory since 1972. Texas fell in the second round to the sixth-ranked and third-seeded Missouri Tigers, 108–89, to end the season at 25–9, a nine-win improvement over Weltlich's final season. The Longhorns' on-court success—in combination with Penders' appealing, fast-tempo brand of basketball and his tireless promotion of the Texas program—produced a rise in average home attendance from the prior season of almost 149 percent (from 4,028 to 10,011), the largest such increase in NCAA Division I basketball for the 1988–89 season. For the 1989–90 season, Texas returned its high-scoring trio of guards, Lance Blanks, 1989
SWC player of the year Travis Mays, and Joey Wright—dubbed "BMW—the ultimate scoring machine" by the Texas
sports information department and labeled the third-best set of guards in the country by
Dick Vitale. Penders' second team finished 24–9 and qualified for the
NCAA tournament for the second straight year—a first in Longhorn basketball history—and for only the second time since the Tournament field expanded to 64 teams. Texas defeated No. 24
Florida in Austin, 105–94, in the fifth game of the season for its first win against ranked competition under Penders. The Longhorns would go on to lose their remaining regular-season contests against ranked opponents—to
Shaquille O'Neal,
Stanley Roberts, and No. 11 LSU in a neutral-site contest, 124–113; to No. 4 Oklahoma in Norman, 103–84; to No. 6 Arkansas in Fayetteville, 109–100, in a game that saw Mays depart in the first minutes due to a finger injury; and, finally, to No. 3 Arkansas in overtime in Austin, 103–96, in a famously bitter defeat that became known in UT lore as the "Strollin' Nolan" game. The Longhorns led by one point with 14 seconds remaining when Arkansas head coach
Nolan Richardson, after an intentional foul call against a Razorback player, slowly walked off the court to the Arkansas locker room. The SWC officiating crew did not assess a
technical foul against Richardson for leaving the court—a decision that the NCAA's chief rules interpreter would label a mistake. Nonetheless, Texas appeared to have the game in hand—leading by three, after Blanks made two free throws—until Arkansas's
Lee Mayberry, the national leader in three-point field goal percentage, made a contested 30-foot shot with four seconds remaining to tie the game at 86–86 and send the game into overtime. Richardson then returned to the court, eliciting a resounding chorus of boos from the crowd, and Arkansas outscored Texas 17–10 in the overtime period to claim the win. Two losses to Houston left Texas with a 12–4 record and third-place finish in conference play. The Longhorns added wins against
Rhode Island—the team Penders had coached before being hired by Texas—and DePaul during the regular season. Against Rhode Island, Travis Mays surpassed Ron Baxter's career scoring total to become the then-leading scorer in UT history. Texas was ranked No. 12 in the post-Tournament Coaches Poll, matching the 1962–63 team for the highest end-of-season poll ranking in program history. Mays and Blanks having been selected in the first round of the
1990 NBA draft, the Longhorns entered the 1990–91 season without two-thirds of the Elite Eight team's "BMW scoring machine." Even so, Texas received a preseason AP ranking of No. 22, and Penders' third team finished with a 23–9 overall record, advancing to the
NCAA tournament and finishing with 23 or more wins for the third consecutive year. After opening with a win over Florida in
Gainesville, Texas fell to No. 20 LSU in
Baton Rouge, 101–87, and No. 16 OU in Austin, 96–88. Texas remained ranked until losing to No. 17 Georgia in
Athens three weeks later. The Longhorns would defeat
Steve Fisher's
Michigan Wolverines, 76–74, and fall to a Tournament-bound
Arizona State team, 89–82, before beginning conference play. After a 101–89 road loss to No. 2 Arkansas, Texas won ten straight games—nine over SWC opponents and one over DePaul—to Texas resurface in the AP Poll for one week in mid-February at No. 24. Penders finally ended both a personal and program seven-game losing streak to Arkansas in the final game of the conference regular season with the Longhorns' 99–86 win over the No. 3 Razorbacks in Austin, which gave Texas a 13–3 record and second-place finish in conference play. Texas would fall to Arkansas six days later in the SWC Tournament final—the last meeting between the Longhorns and the
SEC-bound Razorbacks as conference archrivals. Texas nonetheless ended the season ranked No. 23 in the final AP Poll, for the Longhorns' first appearance in the final AP Poll since the 1978 NIT Championship team, and for only the second time in program history. Texas received a No. 5 seed in the 1991 NCAA Tournament, and the Longhorns would advance from the first round for the third consecutive year before falling 84–76 to fourth-seeded
St. John's in the second round, which made 61 percent of its shots—and 71.4 percent of its first-half shots—while holding Texas to just 40 percent in field-goal percentage. While the departure of Arkansas would hasten the demise of the SWC altogether in the longer term, it immediately consigned the conference—one not regarded as a significant player in college basketball for several decades—to virtual irrelevance in the college basketball landscape. Texas would play just three games against ranked conference opponents—all against the same team, and all occurring in the same season—in the remaining five seasons of the league's existence. Houston was the only remaining program that had resided among the nation's elite in recent years, but the
Guy Lewis era had ended six years prior, and UH had only advanced to the NCAA Tournament twice—winning no games on either occasion—since its famed "
Phi Slama Jama" teams had reached three consecutive Final Fours and two national championship games from 1982 to 1984. Penders' revived Texas program, by default, became the weakened SWC's bell cow, winning or sharing three of the final five SWC championships. Texas quickly took advantage of Arkansas's absence, as Penders' 1991–92 team finished with a 23–12 overall record, for his fourth consecutive season of 23 or more wins, and a share of the SWC championship. Although Texas had lost leading scorer and eventual second-round
NBA draft pick Joey Wright and first-team all-SWC forward and second-leading scorer Locksley Collie to graduation, the Longhorns added transfer guard and eventual first-round draft pick
B. J. Tyler and freshman guard
Terrence Rencher, a prolific scorer who would receive first-team all-SWC honors as a freshman and hold several program and conference records by the end of his senior year. The Longhorns opened the season with wins over Washington and
Princeton in the
Preseason NIT in New York City, before falling to No. 18 Georgia Tech and No. 24 Pittsburgh in the semifinal and third-place games by scores of 120–107 and 91–87, respectively. Texas defeated non-conference opponents
Clemson and Georgia over the course of the season, but fell to No. 17 Oklahoma in Norman, 109–106; No. 8
Connecticut in Austin, 94–77; unranked
UTEP in El Paso, 92–88; unranked LSU in
New Orleans by a score of 84–83; and unranked Rhode Island in Providence by a score of 92–79. The Longhorns nonetheless compiled an 11–3 conference record—losing road contests to TCU, Baylor, and Rice—to share the SWC championship with Houston. Texas defeated Texas A&M and Texas Tech in the SWC Tournament to advance to the final against Houston. Despite having won both regular season games against the Cougars, the Longhorns were uncompetitive in a 91–72 loss in their third contest. Texas was subsequently selected as a No. 8 seed in the
NCAA tournament. The Longhorns lost to the
Iowa Hawkeyes in the opening game by a score of 98–92, marking the only time in eight first-round NCAA Tournament contests under Penders that Texas would fail to advance to the second round. Following 95 wins in Penders' first four seasons at Texas—with never fewer than 23 wins in a single season—an injury-plagued 1992–93 season saw Texas struggle to an 11–17 overall record and a 4–10 record and seventh-place finish in the eight-team SWC. Point guard B. J. Tyler—a key offensive player both as a scorer and as a facilitator, having averaged 18.3 points and 6.5 assists as a sophomore in 1991–92—would miss the majority of the season.
Forward-center Albert Burditt—who led the 1991–92 team in rebounds and blocks—would average 14.9 points, 14.1 rebounds, and 4.2 blocks per contest in the 1992–93 season, but would be limited by injury to playing in only 12 games. Following a 63–53 win over Princeton in the first game in a four-team tournament in
Charlotte, North Carolina, the Longhorns suffered one of the most lopsided losses in school history to
Dean Smith's No. 7 and eventual national champion
North Carolina Tar Heels, 104–68. Texas fell to
Utah in
Salt Lake City, 87–76, defeated Illinois in Austin, 89–72, and suffered an 85–76 loss to No. 15 Oklahoma in the All-College Tournament before beginning conference play. Texas began 0–4 in SWC play and suffered four home losses among its 10 total conference defeats. In the course of the conference season, the Longhorns lost to unranked non-conference opponents LSU in a neutral-site game, Georgia in Athens, and
Virginia Commonwealth (VCU) in Austin by scores of 84–81, 78–70, and 66–60, respectively. Texas defeated Rice in the SWC Tournament before losing to Houston in the semifinals to end the season. Despite the disastrous 1992–93 season, Texas returned a healthy roster deep with talent and experience for the 1993–94 season. Point guard B. J. Tyler, the future 20th overall pick in the forthcoming
1994 NBA draft, and Albert Burditt, future second-round selection in the 1994 Draft, returned in full health (Tyler after missing the first four games) after each having missed the majority of the previous season. Texas was not ranked in the preseason polls, but the potential for significant improvement was evident. Prior to the beginning of the season, sportswriter
Gene Wojciechowski labeled the 1993–94 Longhorns a Final Four candidate, opining that Tyler, Burditt, and Terrence Rencher were the three best players in the SWC. With Tyler still absent, Texas struggled in its first four games, narrowly defeating Nebraska in Lincoln, 78–75, and losing a road contest to LSU and a home game against Florida by scores of 86–66 and 76–68, respectively. The Longhorns' struggles continued, as Texas fell 96–86 to No. 16 Connecticut in
Storrs and 86–61 to
Rick Pitino's
Kentucky Wildcats in Maui to post a 2–4 record in its first six games. Texas won its final game in Maui against
Notre Dame before facing Oklahoma in Austin. Against Oklahoma, the Longhorns were finally able to end a nine-game program losing streak (extending back to 1979) and a five-game losing streak under Penders, defeating the Sooners 87–75 in Austin. The Longhorns avenged the previous season's loss to Utah with a 93–91, double-overtime home win over
Rick Majerus's Utes before losing a closely contested game at Illinois, 83–78. After losing its first SWC game, Texas won 18 of its next 19 games in the regular season and in winning the SWC Tournament, with its only loss coming in double-overtime to Texas Tech in Lubbock, 128–125, and with its wins coming by an average of 22.1 points (and only once by fewer than 12). The Longhorns finished the SWC Tournament with a 25–7 overall record, a 12–2 conference record and outright SWC championship, and a No. 20 ranking in the final AP Poll. Texas received a No. 6 seed in the
NCAA tournament and defeated
Western Kentucky by a score of 91–77 to advance to a second-round contest against third-seeded Michigan, national runner-up the preceding two years. The Longhorns lost a close game to the Wolverines, 84–79, who would advance to the Elite Eight before falling to eventual national champion Arkansas, which defeated Michigan by the second-narrowest margin of its six NCAA tournament wins in 1994. Texas finished the season with a 26–8 overall record, matching Jack Gray's 1946–47 Final Four team and Abe Lemons' 1978 NIT Championship team for most wins in program history. Albert Burditt earned first-team all-SWC honors for the 1993–94 season. B. J. Tyler was recognized as the Southwest Conference Player of the Year and became the first Texas men's basketball player to receive All-American honors since LaSalle Thompson in 1982. Penders resigned on April 3, 1998, following a scandal involving the unlawful release of player Luke Axtell's grades to the media. Longhorn players Axtell,
Chris Mihm,
Gabe Muoneke, and Bernard Smith had met with Texas Athletic Director DeLoss Dodds "to say that they had lost faith in Penders and his program." In ten years at Texas, Penders' teams appeared in eight NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship NCAA Tournaments, advancing past the first round in all but one appearance. Penders finished as the then-winningest coach (by win total) in program history, with an overall record of 208–110 (.654).
Rick Barnes era (1998–2015) during a UT basketball game. Hired as the twenty-third men's basketball coach in Texas history on April 12, 1998,
Rick Barnes left
Clemson University to take over a Texas program coming off of a losing season and "in disarray" following
Tom Penders' resignation. that caused him to miss all of conference play, returning for a brief stint in the conference tournament and in Texas' NCAA tournament game. Texas won four of its last six regular season games, including a 76–63 win over a top-five Oklahoma team in Austin, but lost in the first round of the Big 12 Conference tournament to Baylor, 75–61. In the first round of the
NCAA tournament, the Longhorns lost, as a half-court shot off the backboard lifted Northern Iowa to a 75–72 win. In 2017, the Longhorns went 11–22, finishing with their most losses since the 1983 season. Texas struggled with consistency early in the season, but after leading scorer Tevin Mack was suspended in January, the Longhorns went 4-12 the rest of the way, including seven straight losses to end the regular season. Mack, a sophomore guard, left the team and transferred to Alabama. Freshman center
Jarrett Allen led Texas the rest of the way, averaging 16 points and almost 10 rebounds in Big 12 Conference play. Allen declared for the NBA draft after the season, and the
Brooklyn Nets selected him with the 22nd pick of the first round. Under Smart, the Longhorns' recruiting situation improved dramatically, with players such as
Matt Coleman,
Andrew Jones,
Mo Bamba,
Jaxson Hayes, and
Greg Brown standing out for the team during that time. Texas made the
NCAA tournament in
2018, losing to
Nevada in the first round, followed by an
NIT win in
2019. The
2019–20 season was seen as a failure until a late-season rally by the Longhorns, which arguably saved Smart's job, along with the
COVID-19 pandemic which canceled the
NCAA tournament that year. In
2020–21, the Longhorns won their first
Big 12 tournament title, following a strong showing in a regular season marred by COVID-19 cancellations (including the Longhorns' own semifinal against Kansas). After defeating
Oklahoma State for the Big 12 title, Texas suffered arguably its most infamous loss in school history, as the third-seeded Longhorns fell, 53–52, to 14th-seeded
Abilene Christian in the first round of the
NCAA tournament. Smart, under duress, decamped for
Marquette on March 26.
Chris Beard era (2021–2023) On April 1, 2021,
Texas Tech head basketball coach
Chris Beard accepted the head coaching position at Texas. Widely considered the top candidate from the moment Smart departed, Beard is a 1995 alumnus of the University of Texas and served as student manager under Tom Penders during his time on campus. In Beard's
only full season of coaching at the school, Texas managed 22 wins and an
NCAA appearance, which ended in the second round at the hands of
Purdue. The
2022–23 'Horns started strongly at 7−1 before Beard was suspended in December for allegations of domestic violence. On January 5, 2023, Beard was fired as head coach amid a felony domestic violence charge, which was later dropped as the alleged victim recanted her initial statements.
Rodney Terry as interim coach (2022−2023) Rodney Terry, Beard's top assistant, was given the reins on an interim basis for the remainder of the season. Terry guided a senior- and transfer-heavy Longhorn team to a second-place Big 12 finish, behind perennial conference power
Kansas. Silver linings in Terry's interregnum included an emphatic 75−59 victory over the Jayhawks in the final regular season game, which portended the team's eventual performance in the
2023 Big 12 tournament. Texas would defeat Kansas in the tournament final to clinch an automatic bid in the
NCAA tournament, the second time in three years this has occurred and the first tournament final win over Kansas in school history. In the NCAA tournament the Horns would defeat
Colgate,
Penn State, and
Xavier en route to the school's first Elite Eight appearance in 15 years; the squad would lead
Miami by double-figures in the second half but ultimately fell short, 88–81. The team finished with a 22–8 record with Terry as interim coach.
Rodney Terry era (2023–2025) On March 27, 2023,
Rodney Terry agreed to a deal to become Texas's full-time Head Coach. Terry signed a 5-year, $15.3 million contract. Terry would advance to three NCAA tournaments, two further after being named permanent head coach. He notably guided the Longhorns in the university's first season as a member of the
Southeastern Conference, which yielded a narrow NCAA tournament qualification. Terry was fired by Texas in 2025 after losing an
NCAA tournament First Four game to
Xavier, who was coached by the man who immediately followed Terry,
Sean Miller.
Sean Miller era (2025–present) Sean Miller was named Texas head coach on March 25, 2025. He received a six-year deal to coach the Longhorns. In his first season, Coach Miller and the Longhorns made it to the Sweet Sixteen as the 11 seeded team in the West Region. ==Facilities==