{"id":367667,"date":"2026-07-10T01:18:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:18:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/367667\/"},"modified":"2026-07-10T01:18:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T01:18:41","slug":"no-1-recruit-spears-commits-to-texas-reclassifies-into","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/367667\/","title":{"rendered":"No. 1 recruit Spears commits to Texas, reclassifies into"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Marcus Spears Jr., the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2027, is committing to Texas and reclassifying into this year&#8217;s cycle, he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/mens-college-basketball\/story\/_\/id\/49317082\/top-2027-prospect-marcus-spears-jr-joining-texas-season\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN&#8217;s Jeff Borzello and Paul Biancardi<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The 6-foot-10 power forward chose the Longhorns over Arizona, LSU, and Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Texas basketball is becoming a big thing again, and I am excited to be part of it,&#8221; Spears said Thursday. &#8220;The Texas fans can expect a worker with a lot of energy. I will be trying to bring Texas a national championship.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Spears is two years away from being eligible for the NBA draft. The 17-year-old was a member of the gold-medal squad at the 2025 FIBA U16 AmeriCup, averaging a team-high 14 points and 6.5 rebounds. He also earned All-Star Five honors.<\/p>\n<p>The Longhorns jump to No. 4 in the 2026 recruiting class rankings following Spears&#8217; commitment. Their other pledges include McDonald&#8217;s All-American guard Austin Goosby, forward Bo Ogden, and guard Joe Sterling.<\/p>\n<p>The Plano, Texas, native is the sixth top-five prospect to commit to Texas since 2007, joining Myles Turner (2014), Mo Bamba (2017), and Dillon Mitchell (2022).<\/p>\n<p>Spears plans to rely on the same work ethic that&#8217;s made him one of the top prospects in the nation. &#8220;My focus is to stick to the work that has gotten me to this point,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>He&#8217;s the son of ESPN analyst and former NFL defensive end Marcus Spears. His sister Cari plays volleyball at Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marcus Spears Jr., the No. 1 overall recruit in the class of 2027, is committing to Texas and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":367668,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-367667","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367667","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=367667"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367667\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/367668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367667"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367667"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367667"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}