​PORTLAND, OREGON – MARCH 18: Sean Miller of the Texas Longhorns smiles during practice day ahead of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament at Moda Center on March 18, 2026 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images) | Getty Images Second-year Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller has reason to smile — after signing the nation’s top incoming class, Miller’s team enters the 2026-27 season ranked No. 7 in the preseason AP Top 25 as the Longhorns try to build on the unexpected run to the Sweet 16 that ended with a last-season loss to the Purdue Boilermakers.Suddenly, a deep NCAA Tournament run is the expectation for a team that has Final Four potential.“We’re planning on getting to Detroit,” freshman guard Austin Goosby said in September.The confident assertion from the precocious former five-star prospect mere months after arriving on the Forty Acres stands in stark contrast to how Miller tempered expectations entering the 2025-26 season.Miller’s hire away from Xavier after a First Four win over Texas forced slap-dash roster build without the benefit of a developed plan. On-court preseason development was slowed by the rehabilitation of multiple players, late international arrivals, and two key injuries, including to center Matas Vokietaitis, who became the team’s breakout star.“We’re going to be a very difficult team to judge in the months of November and December in my best attempt, and I think all of our collective best attempt to be the best that we can be,” Miller said last year. “We have some limitations simply because we just haven’t been together and through experiences long enough — we just don’t have enough of those.”The schedule construction, including opening the season against Duke in Charlotte and playing in the Maui Invitational, left Miller frustrated because he didn’t believe that his team was well-situated to handle those challenges.A poor finish to the regular season and an embarrassing loss to open the SEC Tournament hardly foreshadowed the team’s March Madness success, but the Longhorns played their best basketball after landing a spot back in the First Four.Suddenly, Miller had proof of concept to sell when the transfer portal window opened in addition to a plan to execute formed in collaboration with general manager Chris Odgen.The top priority? Retaining Vokietaitis, whose trust in Miller and his staff and comfort level in Austin caused the big Lithuanian to turn down lucrative offers from other programs even though he never entered the portal.Texas moved quickly to land other top targets at need positions — point guard and power forward. The first pledge was Colorado transfer guard Isaiah Johnson, the team’s leader and quarterback after a big-time freshman season for the Buffaloes during which he averaged 16.9 points, 3.0 assists, 2.9 rebounds, 1.0 steals and 1.4 turnovers, shooting 37.8 percent from three and 82.1 percent from the line.“That competitive spirit, you have to