Texas center Matas Vokietaitis (8) talks with head coach Sean Miller during the second half in the first round of the NCAA college basketball tournament against BYU, Thursday, March 19, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)
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Texas coach Sean Miller is entering his 22nd season leading a Division I men’s basketball program. He has won more than 70% of his games and eight regular season conference titles. He has made 14 NCAA tournaments. Still, Miller has never led a team to the Final Four, although that could change as the Longhorns have put together a roster that could be ranked in the top five of the preseason polls.
On Thursday, Texas received a commitment from Marcus Spears Jr., a 6-foot-10 power forward who was the No. 1 recruit in the high school class of 2027. Although he had a year of high school remaining, Spears Jr. reclassified and graduated early, meaning the lefthander will suit up for the Longhorns this season.
Spears Jr., who turned 17 on April 8, is considered an elite NBA prospect, but he cannot enter the draft next year because he is too young. Spears Jr. will be eligible for the 2028 draft, so he will spend at least two years in college.
He is following the path of two other elite prospects in Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje and Nikola Kusturica, who both recently turned 17 and are playing this coming season for Duke and UCLA, respectively. Boumtje Boumtje and Kusturica will also not be draft eligible until 2028.
Spears Jr. is the son of Marcus Spears, a current ESPN analyst who played defensive end for LSU and for nine seasons in the NFL. His mother, Aiysha, played basketball at LSU and was a first round pick in the 20003 WNBA draft. And his sister, Cari, is entering her sophomore year at Texas, where she is on the volleyball team. Cari was a first team All Southeastern Conference selection and third team All-American as a freshman.
Spears Jr. grew up in Texas and played at Dynamic Prep in Dallas alongside other elite recruits such as Austin Goosby, a 6-foot-5 guard who is also entering his freshman season with the Longhorns. Dynamic Prep lost in the semifinals of the Chipotle Nationals high school event in April, with Spears Jr. scoring 16 points and grabbing 10 rebounds but making just four of 15 field goals and missing all six of his 3-point attempts.
Still, that performance was an anomaly, as Spears Jr. has often dominated in high-level competition. At the FIBA U16 Men’s AmeriCup last summer, he led Team USA to the gold medal and averaged a team-high 14 points per game and shot 60.8% from the field. And in the Nike EYBL grassroots circuit this year, Spears Jr. is averaging 20.9 points (second in the circuit) and 8.7 rebounds per game (seventh) and shooting 59.3% from the field.
At Texas, Spears Jr. is joining a team that has undergone a major transformation from last season when the Longhorns finished 21-15, secured a No. 11 seed in the NCAA tournament, won its First Four game and upset No. 6 seed BYU and No. 3 seed Gonzaga before losing to No. 2 seed Purdue in the Sweet 16. Matas Vokietaitis, a 7-foot center from Lithuania, is the only returning player who was in last season’s rotation. He averaged 15.6 points and 7.1 rebounds per game and shot 61.9% from the field.
Texas added five players who are ranked among the top 100 incoming transfers, according to 247Sports, including No. 8 David Punch, a power forward who averaged 14.1 points and 6.8 rebounds as a sophomore for TCU last season, and No. 13 Isaiah Johnson, a point guard who averaged 16.9 points per game as a freshman at Colorado last season.
The other transfers are No. 63 Elyjiah Freeman, a forward from Auburn; No. 83 Amari Evans, a shooting guard from Tennessee; and No. 99 Mikey Lewis, a guard from Saint Mary’s. Freeman and Evans are entering their sophomore years, while Lewis is a junior. The Longhorns also signed Mantas Laurenckas, a 6-foot-3 freshman who played for AS Monaco Basket in France last season.
Texas is No. 5 in CBS Sports analyst Gary Parrish’s preseason rankings and is the second-highest ranked Southeastern Conference team behind No. 1 Florida, which returns starters Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, Rueben Chinyelu and Boogie Fland.
When Miller took over at Texas in March 2025, after three seasons at Xavier, he spoke glowingly of the opportunity to coach for a program that would invest heavily in basketball. The Longhorns were inconsistent last season, finishing 10th in the SEC before ending with an impressive NCAA tournament performance. Now, Miller has Texas headed in the right direction, as all of the Longhorns’ top players have multiple seasons of eligibility remaining, a rarity in today’s college basketball.