Although the college basketball season tips off in just six days, the question marks surrounding the 2011-12 Texas basketball team still loom large. Not since Kevin Durant’s 2006-07 season have the Longhorns been this young, and in a frustrating bit of coincidence for Texas fans, the influx of youth happens to coincide with a season in which there is no clear-cut favorite in the Big 12.

Texas and Kansas finished a combined 27-5 in conference play last season, and were simply a cut above the rest of the league. Third-place teams Texas A&M and Kansas State were both a distant three games behind Texas in the conference standings and four behind the champion Jayhawks. Fortunately for the rest of the league, that dominance is unlikely to continue, as the two teams lose a combined nine of their ten starters this season.

The Longhorns are certainly in much worse shape than the Jayhawks, as Texas loses its entire starting five and will have six freshmen making up the core of what should be a nine-man rotation. While Kansas loses four of their starters from last season, the winning ways will likely continue in Lawrence as eight players return, including Tyshawn Taylor, Thomas Robinson, and Elijah Johnson.

Who’s back

The most-experienced returning player for Texas is mercurial guard J’Covan Brown, who came off the bench in all 36 games last season. While he averaged just 10.4 points in 21.5 minutes per game, he had a breakout performance in the NCAA tournament. In those two games, Brown created off the dribble and repeatedly earned trips to the line. He didn’t miss a single attempt at the stripe, scoring 44 points in the two games while sinking 25 free throws.

In the frontcourt, big man Alexis Wangmene returns with a lot of room for improvement. The senior has yet to average 10 minutes per game in any of his three previous seasons and set a career high with just 2.3 points per game last year. Wangmene has always had issues with catching passes and corraling rebounds, so Texas fans will have to hope that his hands have become much softer over the summer.

The only other returning player — outside of the mop-up duo of Dean Melchionni and Andrew Dick — is Oregon product Clint Chapman. He sat out the entire 2010-11 campaign and used a redshirt, delaying his senior year in the hopes of alleviating the team’s frontcourt issues this season. Unfortunately, recruiting top-flight big men proved difficult for Rick Barnes and company, meaning that Chapman won’t be simply one piece of the frontcourt puzzle. Instead, he will have to make an immediate impact.

Chapman’s best season to date was his sophomore campaign, where he appeared in 32 of the team’s 35 games and averaged just two points in eight minutes per game. For a player who was a consensus top-100 recruit coming out of the Portland suburbs, his career has so far been a disappointment. With such a thin and inexperienced frontcourt, the Longhorns will need him to finally live up to expectations this season.

The newcomers

While Texas had a hard time filling its needs in the frontcourt, their backcourt-heavy recruiting class was still ranked fourth nationally by ESPN and eighth by Rivals. With four of the six freshman ranked in the top 100 of the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, the Longhorns have a very solid nucleus to build upon for the future. In the meantime, there are bound to be growing pains.

The jewel of the class is point guard Myck Kabongo. A McDonald’s All-American, the Canadian was also selected for the Jordan Brand Classic Game, and was described by many scouting services as the best pure point in his class.

For a player headed to Texas, that has invariably drawn comparisons to standouts T.J. Ford and D.J. Augustin, who led Texas to the Final Four and Elite Eight, respectively. While neither is a perfect parallel for Kabongo, there’s no debating the fact that Barnes’ teams excel with a solid coach on the floor. The mature, level-headed Kabongo certainly fits that bill.

Myck brings an offensive skillset that Dogus Balbay sorely lacked, and fortunately also has the defensive tools to make him a Barnes favorite. Kabongo can create off the dribble and boasts a preternatural ability to find open looks for his teammates. He’s also known for a solid three-point shot, which only serves to increase the effectiveness of his penetration game.

Joining Kabongo in the backcourt is guard Sterling Gibbs, the younger brother of Pitt’s Ashton Gibbs. Once committed to Maryland, Sterling decommitted following the retirement of Gary Williams and eventually signed to play on the Forty Acres.

At 6’1″, Gibbs has the body of a point guard, but he carries himself with the confidence of a two-guard. With both Kabongo and Brown in the backcourt, Sterling’s ability to both create and score will allow Barnes to tinker with his lineups. Considering the questions Texas faces in the frontcourt, it wouldn’t be surprising to see all three on the floor at times.

At the wing, Texas welcomes 6″5″ Sheldon McClellan and 6’3″ Julien Lewis. Out of Houston’s Bellaire High, McClellan is an athletic slasher with solid handles and a good — albeit streaky — track record behind the arc. Lewis is a strong 190 pounds, a necessity for a guy his size to finish against bigger players. Like Gibbs, Lewis is undersized for his primary position, but his ability to play both the two and the three will provide Coach Barnes more flexibility with his rotation.

In the frontcourt, Texas will need immediate contributions from freshmen Jonathan Holmes and Jaylen Bond. Holmes is a 6″8″ power forward out of San Antonio whose good ball handling skills and three-point range make him a difficult matchup for other bigs. He brings shot blocking skills that Texas will sorely need following the departure of Tristan Thompson, but scouts fear that he’ll need to bulk up to be able to battle down low in the Big 12.

Bond is a less-polished player, but has impressed coaches with his summer improvement. At the Big 12 media day, Coach Barnes guessed that Bond would be the team’s second-leading scorer, noting that Jaylen’s play over the previous two weeks had vaulted him past McClellan. In addition to inside scoring, the one-time Pitt commit will be asked to come up big on the glass.

At forward, Texas was also counting on big things from the 6’8″ lefty Kevin Thomas. Yet another product of Texas’ new Canadian pipeline, Thomas unfortunately failed to qualify academically and will now be forced to play at the JuCo level this season. Only time will tell if and when he can make his way back to Division I basketball.

The big picture

Not since the 2006 season has a Texas team been such a mystery heading into the year. Coming off of an Elite Eight appearance, that team was also gutted by early departures and had to be built on a foundation of seven freshman. Of course, one of those freshman was Kevin Durant, who became a cult hero during his impressive season at Texas.

Without a once-in-a-lifetime talent like Durant, this year’s Longhorn team will likely have a bumpy ride. With so many freshmen being counted on to play significant minutes, there will certainly be a lot of learning on the fly. Kabongo is already a very mature player, but he will have to adjust to the college game. His fellow freshmen will find that adjustment to be an even tougher task.

The Texas frontcourt is definitely going to be a weakness this year, which means fans will likely see their fair share of a three-guard look. Even when the Longhorns stick with a traditional lineup, they will probably be outsized by their opponents at almost every position. With all of the questions surrounding the production of the Texas frontcourt, perhaps we will even see Barnes experiment with a small, four-guard lineup like Villanova was forced to run in 2006 following Curtis Sumpter‘s injury.

In the backcourt, we’ll be watching to see how Brown and Gibbs play off the ball. J’Covan has found a lot of success in the past when he’s on the ball, creating with dribble penetration. Gibbs, meanwhile, is fairly small for a shooting guard, so his effectiveness might be limited against taller backcourts.

With an athletic roster and small frontcourt, it would seem like an up-tempo, high-pressure approach would play to Texas’ strengths. But with only nine players in the rotation, that strategy could easily lead to late-game and late-season fatigue. Foul trouble would also be a concern with any high-pressure defensive approaches, so look for the Horns to play sound, conservative half-court defense with a tendency to push for transition buckets.

The young Texas roster will have little time to ease into things, with non-conference road tests at UCLA and North Carolina set for December. Before that, they could even face a formidable Vanderbilt team in the final round of the Legends Classic on November 21st. Following that non-con is the first-ever round-robin schedule in a very deep Big 12 Conference, so this could be a very rough year for the Longhorn faithful.

Texas hasn’t had to sweat the NCAA bubble since 2005, when the team won 20 games and went 9-7 in conference play after an injury sidelined LaMarcus Aldridge and grades spiked P.J. Tucker. Depending on how quickly this young team matures, Selection Sunday might once again be a nervous one for the Longhorns and their fans.