Longhorns Country

Texas Basketball Shows Up In Unexpected Spot In SEC Coaching Job Rankings

Coaches were recently anonymously polled on which jobs they found the most desirable, and Texas ranked near the top of the list
Carter Long|
Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller and South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Lamont Paris before their game.
Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller and South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Lamont Paris before their game. | Dustin Safranek-Imagn Images

In this story:

Texas Longhorns

Everything is bigger in Texas.

Coaches in every sport want to lead the Texas Longhorns, and basketball is no different.

A recent poll was conducted ranking the most desirable jobs in the SEC, and Texas ranked near the top of the list.

Texas Ranked 2nd Most Desirable Job in SEC in Anonymous Coaches Poll, Here's Why

Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller
Texas Longhorns head coach Sean Miller after a win against the Vanderbilt Commodores. | Dustin Safranek-Imagn Images

The Field of 68 recently conducted an anonymous poll of assistant and head coaches across college basketball and had them rank each job in a conference.

Texas finished second in the SEC's ranking.

Take a look:

Texas ranking that high may come as a shock to SEC basketball fans, especially given just how much they outrank programs like Alabama, Tennessee and Florida, who won last year's national championship.

The Longhorns did make the tournament's first four last year and had been to the tournament four seasons in a row prior to that, but they have only made it past the second round once in the past 11 years.

For the coaches who were polled, there seems to be one factor that puts Texas above the competition.

“Money," an anonymous coach told Field of 68. "I know it’s not a basketball school, but they still have the money to go get dudes."

In the NIL era, it is clear that resources and capital are a huge priority for coaches, and Texas has both.

The Longhorns have brought in three top-20 high school players since 2022 and currently have the No. 7 class in the 2026 recruiting cycle.

In a sport like basketball where one player can change an entire season, the ability to get top guys is huge. Texas fans remember how much No. 6 overall recruit Tre Johnson meant to last year's squad.

The Longhorns play in one of the newest and most expensive arenas in college basketball, the $375 million Moody Center, built in 2022. The same goes for their training facility, the $60 million Basketball-Rowing Facility.

Coaches will always want to go to schools where they can win. So, while Texas does not have the recent success that a school like Alabama or Florida does, Texas' deep pockets just provide too good of an opportunity.

The opportunity Texas' resources provides also lets coaches take a blind eye to the fact that the Longhorns are on their third coach in five years. The chance to go to a school and get the guys you want is every coach's dream.

Published
Carter Long
CARTER LONG

Carter Long is a sophomore Journalism and Sports Media student at the University of Texas at Austin. He is also a general sports reporter for the Daily Texan on the baseball beat. Long is from Houston and supports everything H-town.