The divergent paths of Texas baseball and Longhorn men's hoops

This weekend stirred up a whirlwind of memories and emotions—thanks to Texas Baseball’s sweep of Santa Clara, a crushing basketball loss to Oklahoma, and my daughter’s second birthday.

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When she was born on this same weekend in 2023, I was over the moon about Longhorn hoops and in the pits about David Pierce’s program. Rodney Terry’s squad won the Big 12 tournament, and he was crafting a Cinderella story after the tumultuous Chris Beard divorce with the 40 Acres. Meanwhile, Pierce was showing that he wasn’t the right coach for the transfer portal and NIL era of college athletics.

For a brief stretch that should have resulted in a Final Four in Houston, Texas Basketball had an elusive identity. Those Longhorns suffocated you on defense, ran, and had the perfect collegiate bucket getters in Dylan Disu and Sir’Jabari Rice.

Longhorn Baseball, on the other hand, was a fly-by-the-seat-of-its-pants adventure: lots of bombs, lots of drama. The cruel ending of the 2023 season, cursed by the fog lights in Palo Alto, was the epitome of what the Longhorn program under Pierce had become. Everything lived on a razor’s edge. It was a far cry from the slicing your opponent to death with 1,000 small cuts style made famous by Cliff Gustafson and Augie Garrido.

Two years ago, I remember almost having to pinch myself just to prove that it was all real.

The sleeping giant of Longhorn programs was awake, and the hardwood fervor was alive among Texas fans, while its most historically great program was clearly in the middle of a malaise.

Fast forward, and the programs are still on divergent paths, but they’ve switched places.

Texas Basketball still doesn’t have an identity, a problem that’s persisted for well over a decade. Men’s hoops looks completely different than it did last year, and will look completely different next year too. Rinse and repeat. The lack of an offensive identity, where the ball orbits around a fantastic one-and-done scorer in Tre Johnson, feels all too familiar. Texas will have another future NBA All-Star to claim, while any semblance of basketball identity remains elusive. Many of the names being tossed out as potential successors to Terry should Chris Del Conte move on seem like retread hires, in the mold of the NBA coaching carousel. Should names like Bill Self or Quin Snyder be entertained, they might gain temporary glory in the form of a Sweet 16 or two, but those hires would be like punting. They’d serve only to kick the can down the road further, delaying the building of a lasting program.

But Texas Baseball, under Jim Schlossnagle, seems to be reaching to reclaim its historic identity of decisive pitching and timely hitting. Players like Ethan Mendoza and Adrian Rodriguez are pillars for the future, rather than one season wonders. As Justin Nash wrote yesterday, it’s one of the six best starts in the storied program’s history. The approaches at the plate are much better, and hitters who often looked lost under Pierce are thriving. It isn’t just feast or famine off the long ball. On the mound, it feels as nostalgic as a home-cooked meal: “Right now, there are five key pitchers for Texas that sit below a 2.00 ERA and 1.20 WHIP.” Arms like Luke Harrison who had seemed to vanish under the former regime, are now thriving.

On the surface, Pierce was very successful, and it was risky to let go of a coach like that. But the fault lines were there. It was also dangerous to go after a rival’s coach who was playing for a national championship in Schloss. It laid Texas A&M’s worst fears about Texas bare for the world to witness. It was the act of a villain, but the right move to make if Texas wanted to reclaim its rightful place at the top of college baseball’s hierarchy. 

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The bizarro world of two years ago, where everything seemed backward and upside down, was as ephemeral as a dream. Basketball is back where it’s always been, a faceless lack of identity. While baseball is finding its way back to where it belongs.