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Texas Longhorns Basketball remains in the hunt for 5* center Myles Turner

Hey, a Texas high schooler still paying attention to Rick Barnes!

By jc25

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Hey, DISTRACTIONS. I'm enjoying the cold-blooded rationality coming from Barkers Scipio, Nobis, et al, regarding the latest and greatest clusterf*ck from Texas football as much as you are. Is there are any good news out there?

Oh yeah. That. That's cool, I guess.

Here's something lost amongst the "burn it all down" news snippets: Texas Longhorns basketball actually has a sliver of good news. Apparently, (presumably) Rick Barnes and (at least one of) the assistants had an in-home visit with five-star center Myles Turner from Euless Trinity today.

It feels fitting that a Duke site broke this news.

To Barnes' credit, he was one of the first to jump on the Turner bandwagon. The big man is now coveted by most every major program in the country. However, prior to an amazing summer on the AAU circuit, Turner was a little-known Texas big man, ranked as just a three-to-four star prospect by all the recruiting services.

Injuries and conditioning held him back as a mid-level player early in his career, but a breakout spring skyrocketed him up big boards everywhere. Turner is now considered a prototypical "stretch big," meaning he can hit the outside jumper as well as he can junkyard dog it inside for boards.

Unfortunately, that improvement makes it hard to see him donning Burnt Orange. Barnes has already missed on a boatload of talented Texas prospects (that's a story for another article). Turner looks like Barnes' last best chance to land an impact player in the 2014 recruiting class. Of course, that's assuming Barnes is even around to coach next year's incoming class.

Texas just doesn't have much to offer in comparison to the blue bloods. Turner will host coaches from the Duke Blue Devils and Kentucky Wildcats this week. Further, he has just one official visit scheduled, to the Kansas Jayhawks from Late Night at the Phog. I'm inclined to put all those schools ahead of Texas in Turner's pecking order, plus one more.

Per multiple sources, Turner also hosted the SMU Mustangs today. Larry Brown's motley program should be considered a real threat. SMU just landed top-flight point guard Emmanuel Mudiay, who basically wrote off Texas a year ago. Mudiay and Turner are friends, and have discussed playing at the same school. With Mudiay's decision seemingly firm, there's a possibility that Turner could join Mudiay in Dallas.

Could Texas actually land Turner? It's a snowball's chance. But hey, it's a chance. Maybe Barnes has one last magic trick up his sleeve.

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