Texas makes its SEC debut at No. 13 Texas A&M

A stretch of five straight top-25 opponents to open SEC play begins with the Lone Star Showdown.

If a non-conference schedule ranked No. 361 out of 364 teams in Division 1 basketball didn’t reveal much about the Texas Longhorns — and it surely didn’t — then head coach Rodney Terry’s team will find out much more about itself over the next two weeks when the Horns face five consecutive top-25 opponents to open conference play in the nation’s toughest basketball conference.

The SEC debut for Texas comes on Saturday evening at Reed Arena in College Station against the No. 13 Texas A&M at 7 p.m. Central on SEC Network as the Lone Star Showdown rivalry renews.

It’s only the third matchup between the two programs since the Aggies left the Big 12 for the SEC following the 2011-12 season. With 225 previous meetings, Texas is the most common opponent in Texas A&M basketball history, leading the all-time series 138-87.

Led by sixth-year head coach Buzz Williams, this might be the best Aggies team for Williams. While that’s a relatively low bar to clear considering that making the Round of 32 in last year’s NCAA Tournament was the best finish for Williams in College Station since arriving from Virginia Tech in 2019, it also shouldn’t diminish this team’s capabilities.

“I think he’s built a really, really good culture there, one where his kids play extremely hard every night,” Terry said of Williams and A&M on Thursday. “When a shot goes up, they’re going to be extremely physical, they’re going to try to beat you to 50/50 balls, they do a great job with their defense, and they attack on their terms.”

Unlike the extraordinarily weak non-conference schedule for Texas, A&M enters the rivalry game after facing eight opponents from power conferences, including posting a 3-0 record against ranked teams, including a 14-point win over Ohio State, which beat Texas in the season opener in Las Vegas. Williams’ team also beat No. 21 Creighton and No. 11 Purdue, as well as Texas Tech.

The team’s catalyst and emotional core is guard Wade Taylor — the Lancaster product leads Texas A&M in scoring (15.9 ppg), assists (5.0 apg), made threes (32), made free throws (41), and free-throw percentage (89.1 percent).

What ultimately defines the Aggies, though, is their physicality. The defense ranks No. 7 nationally in adjusted efficiency and has the No. 15 block rate in the country while the offense gets to the free-throw line with regularity and cleans up its own misses, leading the country with an offensive rebounding rate of 45.4 percent.

The bruises inside are Duke transfer forward Henry Coleman and Minnesota transfer forward Pharrell Payne, who both have higher offensive rebounding rates than defensive rebounding rates. Payne is particularly difficult to defend without fouling — the 6’9, 250-pounder plays just over 17 minutes a game, but has an insane free-throw rate. As a result, Payne leads A&M with 50 free-throw attempts.

So staying out of foul trouble will be a priority for Texas senior forwards Kadin Shedrick and Arthur Kaluma, both of whom give up significant mass to Coleman and Payne, because while Payne only shoots 50 percent from the line, the bigger concern is that foul trouble could limit playing time for the starting frontcourt of the Longhorns.

In losses to UCF and Oregon, Texas A&M shot poorly inside the arc and struggled to keep the Knights and the Ducks off their own free-throw lines, suggesting the potential path to winning for the Horns — defend the paint and attack downhill offensively.

For Texas, Terry said that his team spent non-conference play developing its identity, which the Longhorns want to revolve around playing well defensively and using stops to get out in transition to create easy baskets.

Developing that identity was complicated by the team’s health issues. The final non-conference game against Northwestern State saw that returns of star freshman guard Tre Johnson and senior forward Jayson Kent, making the first time that Texas was fully healthy since the first scrimmage against Grand Canyon back in October.

Having a healthy roster means the Horns can bring two experienced guards off the bench in junior Chendall Weaver and senior Julian Larry, as well as two experienced forwards in Kent and Ze’Rik Onyema, whose mass the Horns may need against the Aggies.

Texas will also have to deal with the electric environment at Reed Arena, which seats nearly 13,000 fans. When Terry played against the Aggies in College Station as an assistant under Rick Barnes, Texas A&M generally fielded weak teams, but that didn’t make winning there easy.

On Thursday, Terry recalled the 2005-06 Elite Eight team suffering one of its three conference losses to the Aggies in College Station when the Longhorns were unable to attempt a go-ahead shot late in the game, affording Texas A&M guard Acie Law a chance to take and make a knuckle-ball, game-winning three at the buzzer to win a 46-43 slugfest.

The rivalry atmosphere means that Texas will have to match the energy level of Texas A&M, a team strength, as Terry noted on Thursday.

“You have to have a physical mindset, you’ve gotta value, take care of the ball, you’ve got to try to win the game within the game, the 50-50 ball game — it really is the difference in in winning and losing,” Terry said.

Texas A&M is a 6.5-point favorite on FanDuel with a win probability of 73 percent and a projected score of 72-66, according to BartTorvik.com.