IT Today: Chris Beard on recent roster additions
Welcome to Inside Texas Today! On weekdays, Inside Texas Today will provide the latest on Texas Longhorns sports from around the Forty Acres. This morning, Chris Beard discusses the additions of Alex Anamekwe and Sir’Jabari Rice.
Here’s the Monday, May 16, 2022 edition.
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Since the the Texas Longhorns’ 2021-22 season ended, UT head coach Chris Beard and company have added two players to the 2022-23 roster in McKinney (Texas) forward Alex Anamkewe and New Mexico State transfer Sir’Jabari Rice.
Prior to speaking at a Texas Exes event in Dallas last Wednesday, Beard offered his thoughts on the two most recent roster additions.
“Rice obviously comes as an experienced player,” Beard said. “We’ve talked about before the relationship in college basketball between experience and winning, so one of our many of objectives is we want to stay experienced. Not necessarily old, but experienced. I think as we go down time here, maybe that means we get some really good freshman to come back and play their sophomore year or something like that down the line, but right now we’re still striving for that.”
“With the returners coming back and the addition of Rice, I think we will again be one of the most experienced teams in college basketball. He’s a versatile guy. He literarily plays four positions. At New Mexico State, he was really well coached by Chris Jans, and that’s something we always look for in transfers and really in all players.”
Beard called Rice competitive and said he came from a defensive minded program run by Jans. Then, he discussed Anamekwe, who Beard said they were late getting into his recruitment when he originally took the job. Texas had seen Anamekwe plenty while recruiting his teammate, 2023 guard Ja’Kobe Walter, but the 6-foot-6 forward was signed with SMU. A head coaching change on the hilltop opened the door for the Longhorns.
“Basketball wise, he’s got length and athleticism, toughness,” Beard said. “He can really do a lot of things on both ends of the floor but he’s such a developing player, too. I don’t know where he’ll end up in the final rankings, but I’ll tell you he’s one of those players to end up being maybe the best player in that class. He’s that good with the upside.”
“A program guy, a guy that very well could find a role as a freshmen, but probably more important than the immediate is thinking about him in the future and what he could become.”
Texas’ 2022 class was ranked as the No. 3 class in the On3 Consensus
