Guard Tyrese Hunter: I'm coming back to the Texas men's basketball team
At Tuesday’s Texas Fight Tour stop in Houston, men’s basketball coach Rodney Terry hinted at some upcoming good news for his team.
That good news arrived Thursday evening, when guard Tyrese Hunter announced on his Instagram account that he had withdrawn his name from the NBA draft pool and will return to Texas for his junior season. Projected as a borderline second-round pick by draft prognosticators, Hunter was not one of the 86 players invited to the NBA draft combine earlier this month.
Dillon Mitchell, a freshman forward who started every game last season for Texas, has kept his name in the draft pool after being invited to the combine. He has until the end of the month to withdraw his name from draft consideration and return to Texas.
More: On Texas Fight Tour, Rodney Terry says the core is in place for UT men's basketball team
The 6-foot Hunter, who transferred from Iowa State after earning the Big 12’s freshman of the year award for the 2021-22 season, can play either guard position and gives the Longhorns a proven two-way player. Last season he started all 38 games for a team that went 29-9, won the Big 12 Tournament and reached the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament. He averaged 10.3 points, three rebounds and 2.5 assists while shooting 39.4% from the floor and 33.7% from 3-point range.
In his career, Hunter has started all 73 of his games played.
He gives the Longhorns arguably one of the best backcourt rotations in the Big 12.
Texas signed guards Max Abmas from Oral Roberts and Chendall Weaver from Texas-Arlington out of the portal. Abmas, a 6-foot senior with two years of eligibility left, has averaged more than 20 points in each of the past three seasons and led the nation in scoring with 24.5 points a game as a sophomore in 2020-21. Weaver, a 6-2, 170-pound combo guard who earned the WAC’s freshman of the year honor last season, led his team in minutes while averaging 9.5 points, 4.6 rebounds and two assists.
Hunter, Abmas and Weaver bring a wealth of starting experience to the Texas lineup. They have started 221 of a combined 228 games in which they’ve appeared. Abmas has started all 123 of his career games. Weaver came off the bench early last season.
Terry and his staff also signed big men Kaden Shedrick of Virginia and Ze'Rik Onyema of UTEP from the portal. Coupled with the return of graduate forwards Dylan Disu and Brock Cunningham and now Hunter, Terry said the newcomers will form a strong nucleus for next season.
Terry also has slim hopes that Mitchell will return, but that seems unlikely after Mitchell’s impressive showing at the draft combine.
“You encourage them and support those guys (exploring their draft options) to try to go live out their dreams,” Terry told reporters at a Texas Fight Tour stop last week in Dallas. “You got to go out there and try to make your way, but knowing at the same time that if you don't hear what you really want to hear, you have an incredible opportunity to come back and continue to be a part of a winning program at the University of Texas.”
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Tyrese Hunter bypasses NBA draft chances, returns to Texas hoops team
