I'll bring that discussion over to this thread (don't know how we devolved into the roster composition discussion on the Point and Laugh thread) in today's high school basketball there are plenty of 6'7" to 6'9" guys who fit the mold of what he's looking for, particularly in Texas. Beard's urgency to win now makes him less patient and seemingly unwilling to project young bigs. Jericho Simms was only 6'7" and around 190 when Smart began recruiting him. He looked more like Dillon Mitchell back then than what he ultimately became, which hopefully means good things for us with Mitchell. Even a Jaxon Hayes fits the mold of a switchable big on the college level.
You have to be willing to look for traits and even risk going after a lower level recruit and project out a little as long they fit your specified physical requirements. Jaxson Hayes and Kai Jones were both outside the top 100 (outside the top 200 in Hayes case) when they caught the previous staff's eye. Beard tends to go after college transfers for his bigs rather than risking a scholi on a young, bouncy big who is yet to physically mature.
Regardless I really like that Beard goes after rangy, athletic guards and wings, so much like the tradeoff we get with his tightly controlled, boring ass offense I'll gladly take athletic wings over bouncy bigs who shoot 50% from the FT line while taking the overwhelming majority of our FT attempts.
Plus Beard got us back into the DFW metroplex recruiting market which was something that we've missed over the last 10 to 15 years. Even Barnes struggled to recruit DFW in his last 5 to 8 years outside of a few one off gets like Myles Turner. To high light how important DFW is for basketball recruiting, Texas has 5 McDonald's All-American's this year and every single one of them is from the metroplex.