Texas lands big pledge from former TCU F David Punch

The advent of the NCAA transfer portal affords the opportunity for programs to fix recruiting misses or missed evaluations and TCU Horned Frogs transfer forward David Punch represents both for the Texas Longhorns in making a big pledge to head coach Sean Miller and his staff on Sunday on a visit to the Forty Acres.

Punch has two seasons of eligibility remanining.

The 6’7, 246-pounder from Harker Heights entered the portal on Thursday with a “do not contact” tag that typically indicates a player’s next destination is already determined. And it was as the Longhorns secured two major weekend pledges from Punch and former Colorado guard Isaiah Johnson after retaining rising junior center Matas Vokietaitis on Friday.

Under former head coach Rodney Terry, Texas wasn’t one of the 19 programs to offer Punch when he was a consensus four-star prospect in the 2024 recruiting class, but Miller did offer Punch at Xavier, securing an official visit from the nation’s No. 21 power forward in the 247Sports Composite rankings before losing out to TCU.

Now Miller adds Punch to his program on the Forty Acres to answer a pressing need at the position thanks to the miss on Nic Codie, who entered the portal on Thursday, and the often poor defensive results that resulted from playing Cam Heide at the four. Heide also went into the portal on Thursday.

In making 27 starts for the Horned Frogs in 33 games as a freshman, Punch was a role player who averaged 6.5 points and 4.4 rebounds per game before emerging as an impact player as TCU made the second round of the NCAA Tournament this season, increasing his scoring to 14.1 points per game and his rebounding to 6.8 per game.

Punch also became a better free-throw shooter, though he still wasn’t particularly efficient at 65.3 percent, and his promising three-point shooting from high school hasn’t yet translated either, but he did shoot 44.8 percent from mid range, is a strong defensive rebounder and shot blocker, and had 34 dunks as a sophomore.

Dailyn Swain’s declaration for the 2026 NBA Draft leaves Texas with remaining needs on the wing and backup depth at guard and in the froncourt, but the Miller and his staff have executed their roster construction at a high level in the last several days to put the pieces together for increased upside next season compared to the team that just made the Sweet 16.