Rodney Terry’s team has its last tuneup before a difficult start to SEC play.
A 10-day holiday break for the Texas Longhorns comes to an end on Sunday morning at the Moody Center against the Northwestern State Demons in the final non-conference matchup for head coach Rodney Terry’s team.
With 10 SEC teams in the AP Top 25 poll, the month of January features eight games for Texas in its conference debut. The Horns open in College Station against the No. 13 Aggies before facing the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the country in Austin — No. 2 Auburn followed by No. 1 Tennessee.
After years of the Big 12 ranking as the top conference nationally in adjusted efficiency metrics, the SEC’s rise has it placed as the most competitive league, just in time for Texas to arrive.
So the conference gauntlet won’t let up after January, which could serve as a defining month as Texas moves from its extremely soft non-conference slate into the SEC grind.
Critical health questions loom over Sunday’s matchup. Will Texas star freshman guard Tre Johnson be available for the first time since injuring his hip in the Dec. 12 win over New Mexico State? Is senior forward Jayson Kent ready to play for the first time since the Nov. 16 win over Mississippi Valley State?
The break allowed both players more time to recover, but the Longhorns don’t have the frontcourt depth to survive in SEC play without Kent available and able to play a critical role to relieve pressure on senior forward Ze’Rik Onyema. And Johnson is obviously the team’s best player and catalyst. After all, Terry and his staff built the team around Johnson.
For Texas, Northwestern State is an opponent that actually ranks in the top 300 teams nationally in BartTorvik.com’s adjusted efficiency metric, in stark contrast to facing some of the worst teams in the country.
Still, that means a 97-percent win probability for the Longhorns, so there shouldn’t be much drama surrounding the 11 a.m. Central trip on SEC Network+.
There are some trends to note for Texas — the Horns rank No. 7 nationally in effective field-goal percentage at 59.1 percent, lead the country in turnover rate at 12.8 percent, and are fourth in three-point percentage at 41.5 percent. Of course, those aren’t opponent-adjusted metrics as Texas has faced the No. 358 strength of schedule, according to KenPom.com.
So the adjusted efficiency metric of 39th offensively and 38th defensively are an attempt to quantify what the raw efficiency numbers for Texas say about the awful strength of schedule.
Expect a sharp drop in the raw numbers with the stratospheric increase in competition level that begins after facing another team that isn’t worth discussing in any specificity.