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Shaka Smart will return next season for the fifth year as a men's basketball coach in Texas after the Longhorns have won their last five games and turned a 16-16 record in a 21-16 limited season by winning the tournament National Invitational, confirmed Texas Sports Director Chris Del Conte Horns247 on Thursday night.
The Longhorns defeated Lipscomb 81-66 at Madison Square Garden to win the first NIT title of the program since 1978.
"We are not where we want to be," Del Conte told Horns247. "But we are progressing. Our goal is to win the NCAA Championship. But we won the NIT Championship and this locker room is cohesive.
"I'm happy and excited for Shaka and our players, very rarely you win your last game of the season, and we did it tonight."
Smart's job security became a hot topic towards the end of the Longhorns' regular season, when Texas lost five of six players, including a home match against the TCU in the season finale regular, as well as a defeat in the first round of the Big 12 tournament in Kansas. fall to 16-16 (8-10 in Big 12 play). The Longhorns missed the NCAA tournament for the second time in the last three years on Smart after being sidelined for one of the 36 waiting offers.
The biggest job security guarantee for Smart at that time was the remaining $ 13 million over the last four years of a fully secured Texas contract. But the Longhorns NIT championship race, in which Texas played its best defense of the year, holding its five opponents (South Dakota, Xavier, Colorado, TCU and Lipscomb) at 62.8 points per game, is now the dominant reason for Smart is back.
Smart is 71-66 overall in four seasons in Texas and 31-41 in Big 12 with a 0-2 record at the NCAA Tournament and a NIT Championship.
The Longhorns will lose their top two scorers of this year's team – the seniors Kerwin Roach (15.0 points per game) and Dylan Osetkowski (10.9 points, 7.1 rebounds per game) – and could lose their third top scorer, Big 12 Freshman of the year Jaxson Hayes (10.0 points per game), which is considered a potential lottery choice in the draft of the NBA 2019.
If these three leave, the core of the Longhorns will be the guard next season Matt Coleman, Courtney Ramey, wing Jase Febres and forward Jericho Sims.
The recruiting class for Texas in 2019 is ranked 13th in the country, according to 247Sports, and includes five stars, 7 feet Will Baker from Austin Westlake; Kai Jones of the Brewster Academy (Wolfeboro, New Hampshire), four 6-foot-10 stars; and four stars, shooting guard 6 feet 5 inches Donovan Williams from Fort Bend Elkins.
The three are among the top 70 national hopefuls of the 2019 class.
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Texas also stays in the mix for the five-star attacker Jaden McDaniels (Federal Way, Wash.). US General McDonald's and # 5 in the 247Sports Composite rankings made an official visit to Texas on November 2, 2018.
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