{"id":238262,"date":"2026-04-07T05:03:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:03:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238262\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T05:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T05:03:20","slug":"texas-basketball-team-loses-starter-justice-carlton-to-transfer-portal-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/238262\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas basketball team loses starter Justice Carlton to transfer portal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Citing Carlton’s representative, On3 broke the news about the sophomore forward’s departure on Monday evening. Carlton later confirmed her decision to the American-Statesman.<\/p>\n

The loss of Carlton leaves the Longhorns lacking experienced depth at the “4” position since seniors Ashton Judd and Teya Sidberry have exhausted their eligibility. Texas is set to add freshman forwards\u00a0Brihanna Crittendon and Joyce Isime Etute to its roster next season.<\/p>\n

Following a freshman year in which Carlton was both responsible for UT’s only 30-point game but also a non-factor in the postseason, the 6-foot-1 Katy native became a fixture in the Texas starting lineup. Carlton, who was able to ditch the brace for a knee injury<\/a> that she sustained in high school, started in 28 of UT’s final 29 games this winter. She averaged 8.5 points and 4.0 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n

Carlton’s marquee moment came in the SEC championship game on March 8. Carlton helped UT race out to a 14-0 lead in its eventual 78-61 win over South Carolina, and she earned a spot on the SEC’s all-tournament team with her 15-point effort against the Gamecocks.<\/p>\n

“I think my physicality (improved),” Carlton said last week when asked about her biggest improvements as a sophomore. “I think my consistency can still get better, but I think being physical really helped. I think I’m able to finish, and being physical helped a lot.”<\/p>\n

But despite the strides she made this season, Carlton seemingly still had a short leash on the court with Judd and\u00a0Sidberry<\/a> behind her on the depth chart. Carlton played less than 20 minutes in two of UT’s three games at the SEC Tournament and appeared for just seven minutes against Oregon during the second round of the NCAA Tournament. In the Longhorns’ season-ending loss to UCLA in the Final Four, Carlton played 14 minutes.<\/p>\n

Publicly, Carlton said all the right things about her inconsistent playing time. Carlton, however, was visibly frustrated when she was pulled with 7:58 left in the fourth quarter of the UCLA game after she provided Texas with a hard-to-find offensive spark in the third quarter’s final seconds but committed a fourth-quarter turnover that led to\u00a0fastbreak points for the Bruins. Carlton ignored\u00a0Vic Schaefer’s instructions to come talk to him while walking back to the Texas bench, which led to the UT coach telling her that she wouldn’t return to the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Citing Carlton’s representative, On3 broke the news about the sophomore forward’s departure on Monday evening. Carlton later confirmed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128334,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[34577,27,29,537,5276,28,13548],"class_list":{"0":"post-238262","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-justice-carlton","9":"tag-texas","10":"tag-texas-headlines","11":"tag-texas-longhorns","12":"tag-texas-longhorns-women-s-basketball","13":"tag-texas-news","14":"tag-women-s-college-basketball"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238262\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128334"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}