With the 15th overall pick in 2026 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls picked Texas basketball TK Dailyn Swain. He\u2019s now the Longhorns\u2019 21st player to hear his name called in the first round.<\/p>\n
Prior to his selection, Swain entered this year\u2019s draft as a chin-scratching, but tantalizing, wing prospects in the 2026 class. He has his single season at Texas to thank as he rose nearer and nearer the top of the draft boards.<\/p>\n
Swain began his college career at Xavier. However, Swain would eventually part ways with the university to join Texas men\u2019s basketball head coach Sean Miller in his first year leading the program. A change of scenery would do wonders for Swain; nearly on day one, he became one of the team\u2019s focal points, as Swain, at 6-foot-7, average 17.3 points, 7.5 rebounds, 3.6 assists, and 1.6 steals per game while shooting 54.2% from the field. By season\u2019s end, Swain led the Longhorns in scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, and minutes played. And as a result, Swain become the only player in a Division 1 conference to lead his team in all the previously mentioned categories. He was also cited as just the third player in the past three decades to average at least 17 points, seven rebounds, and three assists per game in a season, according to Texas Athletics.<\/p>\n
In his final NCAA season, Swain and his teammates managed to end the season in the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16, as the SEC named him \u201cNewcomer of the Year\u201d and to its second-team all-conference team. Swain was also a finalist for the Julius Erving Small Forward of the Year Award.<\/p>\n
It seems NBA scouts have not underestimated Swain\u2019s size and strength. And while his shooting along the perimeter could improve\u2014and with NBA-quality conditioning and coaching staff, it almost undoubtedly will improve in the coming years\u2014it\u2019s Swain\u2019s raw athleticism, aggressive defensive approach, and his roles in playmaking that likely sold him to staffers associated with the sport\u2019s highest level of play.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the 15th overall pick in 2026 NBA Draft, the Chicago Bulls picked Texas basketball TK Dailyn Swain.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":347967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[63991,27,29,13558,13559,110251,10018,28],"class_list":["post-347966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-nba-horns","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns-basketball","tag-texas-longhorns-basketball-recruiting","tag-texas-longhorns-news","tag-texas-longhorns-recruiting","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347966","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=347966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}