AUSTIN, Texas — For the fourth time in Sean Miller’s head coaching career spanning more than two decades, the first-year leader of the Texas Longhorns basketball program has transitioned into a new role, albeit amidst a college sports landscape that looks much different than it did three years ago when Miller returned for his second stint with the Xavier Musketeers.
With the advent of revenue sharing joining Name, Image, and Likeness rights, roster retention has never been more complicated, creating roster management challenges that led Miller to tell local media on Tuesday that his four months on the Forty Acres have felt longer as the team goes through offseason workouts.
“It feels like a lot of different things are happening that years ago when you would take over a new program, it’s about establishing your new staff, getting to know your current roster, and acclimating yourself to the new university. Now there’s roster building and decisions that have to be made almost in the first couple of weeks of being in a new place. So I think a lot has happened for us as a staff, me as a coach, in our brief time,” Miller said.
Three Texas players entered the NCAA transfer portal after Miller’s arrival, including promising junior forward Devon Pryor, Miller worked to retain the program’s lone 2025 signee, forward John Clark, kept senior guards Jordan Pope and Tramon Mark with the Longhorns, and landed the first of five additions from the NCAA transfer portal, former Xavier forward Dailyn Swain, only eight days after he took the job.
With the roster now in place as the staff awaits the arrival of international additions Lewis Obiorah, an English center, and Declan Duru, a German forward, and the full clearances of Mark (shoulder) and senior center Lassina Traore (knee) in their returns from injury, Miller is pleased with the status of the Texas program.
“I’ve been, really not surprised at all, but very, very happy with the progress that we’ve made as a group. I think we have a good group when you look at the number of players that will be on this year’s team that have a lot of history and experience in college basketball, I think that’s still a really powerful force when it comes to America’s best teams in college basketball — retention, experience, older players, I do think that’s part of the equation,” Miller said.
Mark is the example used by the Texas head coach — the Houston and Arkansas transfer has scored more than 1,500 career points over 136 games as he prepares for his sixth year of college basketball, but junior Purdue transfer forward Camden Heide has played for a national championship and junior St. John’s transfer guard Simeon Wilcher was a contributor to a Red Storm team that won the Big East regular-season and tournament titles to earn a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
“What we love about him is he knows how to win. He’s been a part of a really terrific program. I think he understands how to accept a role and how to play winning basketball,” Miller said of Heide.
Heidi also profiles as one of the team’s best shooters, arriving at Texas with a career 41.2-percent three-point shooting percentage. Miller also mentioned Pope as one of the shooters that stands out for this Longhorns team after finishing second on the team in made threes last season.
“We have a number of others, I think, that are solid and consistent, and my hope is that there’ll be storylines of their improvement shooting,” Miller said.
Senior guard Chendall Weaver falls into that category after shooting 40.2 percent from three as a freshman at UT Arlington before struggling as a sophomore at Texas and only taking 20 threes last year due to an injury that kept him out for most of the conference season.
Put Wilcher into that group as well — the New Jersey product shot less than 30 percent in 2024-25, but Miller has confidence in his shooting stroke that is backed up by Wilcher’s ability to knock down free throws at a rate of 73.7 percent last year.
Swain extending his range beyond the three-point line is the next step for the former Xavier standout who was one of the most coveted players in the portal after entering, according to Miller. There’s already been plenty of physical development for Swain, who is now 220 pounds after arriving in Cincinnati at 178 pounds, but shooting 20.4 percent from three in his career remains a limiting factor for his professional prospects.
“What makes Dailyn a good player is his versatility and the fact that he can check the box on both defense and offense. He’s not shown an ability to shoot the three-point shot. If you go to our last game at Xavier when we lost Illinois in the NCAA Tournament, Dailyn hit three threes. I believe this — it’s a sign of things to come. He’s working very hard at his three-point shooting to add that element to his game,” Miller said.
The versatility of Swain will be key for the Longhorns to play with the pace that Miller wants offensively after putting a great emphasis on playing uptempo basketball in recent years that helped produce the No. 31 adjusted tempo and No. 6 assist rate during the 2022-23 season in which the Musketeers advanced to the Sweet 16.
“We want to play with pace. We want to play with pace on an opponent’s made or missed field goal. And I think that’s really important for me to convey that there’s a difference between running off of another team’s missed shots or turnovers and pushing a fast pace when they score on you. When you watch us, fast execution means we’re constantly trying to get those quick strike moments in the first six seconds. That’s something that I believe in,” Miller said.
The new Texas head coach also wants a halfc0urt offense that incorporates more ball and player movement than the Horns have had in some recent seasons.
“When we’re in the halfcourt, you should see all five players touching the ball most of the time. I think the two things that determine our halfcourt approach is unselfish cuts and movement without the ball and the ball having energy, meaning that it just moves. It shouldn’t stick. And I think that if the ball has energy and you have unselfish cuts and you have five players involved, that’s the hardest team to defend, and that team can beat the best teams on their schedule,” Miller said.
Because Miller hasn’t had his whole team together practicing yet, he’s not quite sure what the upside for this year’s group looks like, but if Texas is able to execute offensively the way that Miller wants, the Longhorns should be a more exciting team to watch.