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Great to hear Texas should have Pope come Thursday. All hands on deck.

Sean Miller’s Texas squad spent Sunday away from the court after advancing to the Sweet 16 with Saturday’s NCAA Tournament second-round win over Gonzaga. The downtime allowed Jordan Pope to get treatment for an ankle injury he sustained late in the 74-68 win over the Bulldogs, which allowed the Longhorns to reach the second weekend of March Madness for the first time since 2023 and the second time since 2008. “With Jordan, I think we’ll be fine,” Miller said Monday during a Zoom call with reporters. “We didn’t do anything yesterday, so we weren’t together, but he’s gotten treatment and moving forward.” A source told On Texas Football on Sunday how close it could get Pope “to 90-95 percent will come down to Sunday through Wednesday." Texas (21-14) doesn’t travel until Tuesday for its West Regional semifinal at San Jose’s SAP Center against No. 2 seed Purdue on Thursday (6:10 p.m. CT, CBS). The Longhorns will be on the court for practice Monday afternoon, giving Pope more time to rest before putting his ankle to the test against a veteran backcourt led by Braden Smith, who broke Bobby Hurley’s NCAA record for career assists (1,091 after Sunday’s 79-69 second-round win over Miami) in Purdue’s (29-8) first-round rout of Queens. “You go and break that record, I think that says everything about his ability to pass, play-make, make his teammates better,” Miller said of Smith. “He’s one of the best in the game and a big, big part of why Purdue is so great offensively.” The fifth all-time NCAA Tournament meeting between Texas and the Boilermakers will feature two of the most experienced backcourts in the country. Smith and Fletcher Loyer have played a combined 294 collegiate games (147 each), which actually falls short of the 305 combined games played by Pope (134) and Tramon Mark (171). Pope is averaging 11 points, 2.3 assists and 1.3 rebounds per game in the Longhorns’ three NCAA Tournament victories. Although his 7-for-22 mark from beyond the arc is behind the pace at which he’s converted 3-point shots throughout the season (36.9 percent through 35 games), Pope’s clutch 3-pointer with 1:29 left in a 79-71 first-round win over BYU is one of several big-time plays Texas has gotten from the Oakland, Calif., native during the team’s unlikely run to the Sweet 16. “I don't know if there's too many guards that are playing in the Tournament that are playing at a higher level than Jordan Pope,” Miller said after Pope scored 17 points on 7-for-18 shooting (3-for-8 from 3-point range) with three assists and no turnovers in the win over Gonzaga. “He means a lot to our team. What he's really mastered is that he controls the game and he's our point guard, but he adds such a strong scoring punch that he can change the game from the 3-point line.” View full news story

Compare that to MSU or Duke... heck, even Houston or Alabama. That said, I think it will change with time w/ Coach Miller... 🤘

I love to see the growth of Nick Codie from the beginning of the year until now. After the Tennessee game, he was benched for a while. How he has stepped up and earned his minutes and actually making a difference now is awesome to watch.

Purdue and Michigan State were the easy ones for me. Man times have changed.

That graphic makes me sad. Not one of our guys homegrown.

The Portal is here to stay. It is what it is. Also the Portal mess you speak of allowed Texas to bring in several elite starters that likely has propelled us to a NC contender.

That's it for the call with Sean Miller. The next time we hear from the Longhorns will be San Jose.

Miller hopes the Longhorns have a good following in San Jose. Texas felt the hatred in the arena in Dayton and playing BYU and Gonzaga in Portland made those games feel like road games. "It says a lot about our team that we were able to win three games against those circumstances," Miller said.

"No doubt, we're certainly going to utilize his familiarity with his former teammates and Purdue," Miller said, adding that Heide "had a great experience at Purdue, so it's easy for him to talk about."

The Texas staff "would be foolish not to pick" Cam Heide's brain about Purdue.

Weaver's ability to impact the tempo and speed of the game and make the little plays that don't show up in the box score has been amplified the last few games.

No one said anything negative about the players making more. It’s just crazy that we are in a time where there is THAT much money flowing through the sports. I like the idea stated above of having it trickle down to fans with lower prices since most of the money is TV or ad revenue and not tickets and concessions though those obviously play a role. The curve of how quickly the money is going up is what I was referring to. The last 10 years have been crazy exponential compared to the previous 50-60.

Miller said Chendall Weaver is a throwback player because he's coming to the end of his career as a Texas kid who loves his program and his university. "Every game he's playing right now can be his last," Miller said. "There's a healthy dose of desperation with a kid like Chendall."

Tramon Mark's recovery from shoulder surgery meant Texas was being judged through January while trying to get familiar with each other and figuring out how the pieces fit. "Maybe it took us longer," Miller said. "The journey for us, where we started in late March, early April, is very different from what I hope it'll be moving forward.

On what's changed with the Longhorns in recent weeks, Miller goes back to last spring and the challenges he faced trying to put the roster together. "You have to build your team in about a 4-6 week period of time," he said, adding that a lot of the key decisions had to be made in a 14-day window.

The time between the end of the SEC Tournament and leaving for Dayton, Miller believes, the Longhorns matured a lot. "I hope we're not in that predicament any time soon," Miller said. "But we handled it really well."

Miller believes Texas has gotten better at closing out on 3-point shots, but he doesn't have a great answer for why the Longhorns have been much better defending 3-pointers in the NCAA Tournament compared to the rest of the season.

"The other part with Matas is that he can really put fouls on the other team," Miller said. Matas' ability to get Purdue's bigs to commit fouls is a huge factor on Thursday, he added.

Matas scores in a lot of different ways. Miller specifically mentioned that second shots off offensive rebounds and running the floor in transition are opportunities where Matas needs to score.

Swain cutting down on his turnovers has made a huge difference in Texas' ability to get into a flow on offense. Swain had a combined 12 assists and one turnover in the wins over BYU and Gonzaga.

Miller said Dailyn Swain came up in basketball as a pass-first guy. He's always had a gift for being a facilitator and playmaker who can set guys up, Miller said.

Texas has been more efficient lately when playing Matas and Nic Codie together. Miller said they'll explore more of that against Purdue.