For Longhorn Ioannis Papapetrou, basketball never stops.
The 6'8 sophomore forward is spending his summer overseas, playing in the Under-20 European Championships as a representative for his home country of Greece.
Myck Kabongo will be the only Longhorn looking to be selected in this year's NBA draft. The 6' 3" point guard from Toronto, who will be 21 years old on draft night, was suspended back in December for accepting impermisible benefits and missed Texas' first 23 games of the season. After the suspension, he returned in led the Longhorns through their 11 remaining games of the season including a career performance against Oklahoma, scoring 31 points with 28 of them coming in the second half and in overtime.
It will take time to get the kind of players that the roster will need and for them to develop into the kind of players that can start on a championship team. But can Rick Barnes manage such a quick turnaround in such a short time?
Rick Barnes has made a habit of losing players before they graduate. It’s a habit that, with a change to his recruiting philosophy, he’s hoping to break.
He only played roughly 1,200 minutes as a Longhorn, and he will most likely be remembered more for a suspension than for any one moment during his two years at Texas.
For Rick Barnes, the end of the year means putting a 16-18 record behind them and shifting focus to the future. It also means figuring out who’s going to be on his team.
