This is no longer Miller’s first rodeo on the Forty Acres.
On the day that Miller was named the 27th head basketball coach for the Texas Longhorns last year, the NCAA transfer portal window opened. It was another month until Miller officially announced his five assistant coaches, general manager, strength coach, and chief of staff.
“It was just really a crazy time in college sports in general, so I think we all just tried to land at the new place that we were at and get one foot on the ground,” Miller said on The Field of 68 on Monday.
The team that Miller and his staff ultimately built after retaining a significant portion of Rodney Terry’s roster went through up and downs during the 2025-26 season before making an unexpected run from the First Four to the Sweet 16.
Now the program feels more steady as Miller enters his second year in Austin.
“It’s really healthy to have the perspective of being at that place for a year, being in that league for a year — you’re just much more sure footed,” Miller said. “I think you know at that point what it’s really about, what you need to be successful, and to some degree, you learn a lot about the place that you’re now at.”
More importantly, the Longhorns had a plan the staff was able to develop heading into the postseason and finalize in the 12 days between the season-ending loss to the Boilermakers and the portal window opening, which moved to after the national championship game instead of happening during the NCAA Tournament.
“We really wanted to be super aggressive right out of the gates, knowing that we had some real needs to fill,” Miller said.
The aggressiveness paid off — Texas signed five players from the portal to secure a group that 247Sports ranked third nationally in total points and third nationally in average player rating, led by rising junior TCU transfer forward David Punch, the No. 9 player in the portal, and rising sophomore Colorado transfer guard Isaiah Johnson, the No. 14 overall player in the portal.
The Longhorns also added size on the wing with Auburn transfer Elyjah Freeman, a 6’8, 185-pounder, and Tennessee transfer Amari Evans, a 6’5, 220-pounder, a significant part of the staff’s plan.
“When you have size, you can be more interchangeable — different players can be on the court with different combinations, not if this one particular player is in the game, then the other can’t play, they platoon for each other. That’s really not what we wanted to do. So I think the size and the versatility of our group is something that we really wanted to make sure that we had,” Miller said.
But Texas needed lead guards, too, in order to replace Jordan Pope and Tramon Mark, key holdovers from the Terry era.
Some of that playmaking punch in the backcourt will come from St. Mary’s transfer Mikey Lewis, but landing Johnson, the No. 2 point guard in the portal, was the huge coup — as an 18-year-old playing in one of the nation’s best basketball conferences, Johnson set the freshman scoring record for the Buffaloes as his 16.9 points per game scoring average ranked third in the Big 12 and 13th nationally among Division I freshmen with the help of nine 20-point performances.
“To me, he’s the modern guard in that he can both score and distribute. From an offensive perspective, skill level, I don’t know if there’s too many players that will be playing college basketball that are more skilled than him,” Miller said.
With splits of 48.6/37.8/82.1, Johnson is an elite scorer in terms of his efficiency, but the Texas head coach also believes that the 6’1, 190-pounder has more to offer than simply making baskets.
“I also believe that he has the ability to make his teammates better. Understands the game, plays really under control,” Miller said.
Some of Johnson’s basketball intelligence developed with the help of his father, Chris, a well-regarded NBA trainer who has worked with players like LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Jimmy Butler, DeMar DeRozan, and Tyrese Maxey.
Now the next step is to continue that development at Texas as part of a portal class that has elevated the Horns to a potential preseason top-10 program.
“I’m excited to get him here because he was so young, I think he’s going to grow and get bigger and stronger, and as he does, I think some of the things he did as a freshman, he’s really going to be even better at as a sophomore,” Miller said.