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The press release from UT on Duru: Declan Duru Jr. has signed an Athletic Scholarship Agreement (ASA) to play basketball next season at The University of Texas, head coach Sean Miller announced Wednesday. Duru, who spent the last five years with Real Madrid in the program’s youth development system in Spain, will join the Longhorns as a true freshman for the upcoming 2025-26 season. Duru (6-9, 225), a forward who is originally from Munich, Germany, played for Real Madrid B and the Real Madrid U19 team last season. He played in seven contests for Real Madrid U19 in 2024-25 and averaged 12.0 points and 5.4 rebounds in 25.0 minutes per game while converting 49.2-percent (29-59) from the floor, including a 41.9-percent mark (13-31) from three-point range. Duru also saw action in 17 games for Real Madrid B and averaged 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds in 20.8 minutes per contest. Duru recently helped his native Germany post a 6-1 record and earn a silver medal at the FIBA U19 World Cup in Lausanne, Switzerland (June 28-July 6). He reached double figures in scoring in six of the seven games and averaged 11.4 points and 5.1 rebounds in 28.6 minutes per contest while converting 52.4-percent (22-42) from the floor. The previous summer, Duru paced Germany to a 7-0 mark and the gold medal at the 2024 FIBA U18 EuroBasket Championship in Tampere, Finland. During the 2023-24 season, Duru helped the Real Madrid U18 team win the Euroleague Basketball Next Generation Tournament. He also paced the Real Madrid U16 team to a pair of Spanish Championships in 2022-23 and helped the Real Madrid U14 squad claim the Spanish Championship in 2021.

What will be interesting is how the staff uses Riojas next season. We mentioned leading up to the season how Schloss and Max Weiner envisioned utilizing Ruger the way they used Evan Aschenbeck at A&M, which is to say he was a true stopper. However, the lack of a reliable No. 3 starter forced Ruger into the rotation and Jared Spencer’s injury kept him there.

Awesome!🤘🏼

Huge news 🤘🏼

Duru has signed his ASA with Texas. He’s officially a Longhorn.

Lewis Obiorah has signed an Athletic Scholarship Agreement (ASA) to play basketball next season at The University of Texas, head coach Sean Miller announced Wednesday. Obiorah, who spent last year playing at Barking Abbey Basketball Academy in London, will join the Longhorns as a true freshman for the upcoming 2025-26 season. Obiorah (7-1, 245), a center from London, England, played for head coach Rikki Broadmore at Barking Abbey in the Elite Academy Basketball League (EABL), which features the top under-19 players in the country. Obiorah earned EABL championship finals MVP honors while leading Barking Abbey to the EABL championship last year. He averaged 10.7 points, 9.6 rebounds and 3.7 blocks per game during the 2024-25 season. Obiorah will be competing with Great Britain’s U20 National Team at the FIBA U20 EuroBasket Championship Division B on July 11-20 in Yerevan, Armenia. The above is a press release from the University of Texas.

CJ was answering a question about how many freshman would start, not giving his whole philosophy on roster management.

Huge to get those 3 arms back.

I am not saying don't recruit good players. Top 100 players in the class: 2024: 6 2025: 10 2026: 6... in July. Texas will get close to that 10% number of the top-100 like they did in the No.1 class last year.

Received a message this morning from an AI directory asking me to give a summary of my published writings on McCarthy's Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West. I think that's because a movie based on the book is coming out in the not too distant future. Told them to contact Matthew here at OTF. I can't shorten what I wrote, but he knows.

I like it. Thanks, Jeff.

This is such a stupid way to look at 2026 class....you want the class to be as loaded as it can not for 2026 Texas Longhorns season but for 2027-2028-2029. But I guess that's the recurring message around Texas for the 2026 class.

Pope/Weaver/ Wilcher?

Blake reported this a while back and we’ve been mentioning it when talking about the Texas pitching staff in 2026, but it’s official (per Kendall Rogers) that the Longhorns are welcoming back Max Grubbs, Luke Harrison and Ruger Riojas for the 2026 season. The plan is for Harrison to be back in the Saturday role next season.

Good. None of them were/are ready to enter the draft anyway

We have an amazing roster, it just takes constant restock to maintain. Objectively, we have holes in this class at linebacker, right tackle, and running back, as the options we have chased at these positions are all committed. Hoping for flips and late evals is fine, but not ideal. Especially in this environment when big money deals have locked up recruits who like us already, but money isn’t charging. I am hopeful for some coaching carousel to maybe boost our current holes in the class later. But some of these kids are now committed at their second third choice and just took a payday, so a coaching change might not make a difference. The money will still be there. And I know it isn’t December, but again, all our offers are committed at the positions above. Except for Atkinson, which is a crap shoot. And sure, we can fill these later in the portal, but that is expensive, so spend the money now and develop. Keep the snowball rolling. So I can watch it while crying from my Alaskan yacht.

Texas may be passed the point of freshmen coming in and starting immediately. As good as Colin Simmons was coming in a year ago, he only played 20 snaps week two vs. Michigan. How many true freshmen are set to start in 2025? I would argue none. Texas is deep. Now, that mean they won't contribute and find the rotation. But, ultimately Texas has done such a fine job building the roster and finding pieces via the portal there isn't (and shouldn't) be a need for immediate freshmen to start/play big roles.

Harrison, Riojas and Grubbs all coming back! 🤘🏻🤘🏻🤘🏻

Who replaces Mark if he is injured?

Thanks, Gerry! You provide us with the best Texas hoops insight and info in the market by a country mile!

No. Ben Henshall was in the NBA draft and pulled out ... his ask was over 1mill ... but at the end of the day Henshall told colleges he doesn't really want to do the school thing. We shall see if that changes, but he may opt for overseas big contract and then to the NBA. The Texas staff preferred another big over a guard after having the guys in workouts. Especially a multi-year guy

I hear you. In Sark we trust. I just don't understand how Sark can be a closer when there is no money to allocate. He can't just make it up. I have my doubts for this year's class. I do think the market resets next year when there is no more frontloading (a one time anomaly). PS...I love your idea of a floating rev share number...maybe a set percentage of AD annual revenue....no way Rice should have same budget for Rev Share as UT.