Texas Basketball: 3 gifts Shaka Smart would really want for Christmas

No. 10 ranked Texas basketball has a real shot to make the 2020-21 college hoops season special if head coach Shaka Smart can continue this momentum.

For the first time in more than five years, the Texas basketball program was able to crack the top 10 in both major polls. No. 10 ranked Texas is off to a really nice start this season, and looks like head coach Shaka Smart‘s team could be for real this time around. Smart’s had a lot of teams that were hyped up like this, but none that really lived up to the preseason billing.

Texas sits at No. 10 in the AP Poll and Coaches Poll this week.

Smart and the Longhorns just knocked off the Oklahoma State Cowboys in their de facto Big 12 opener at home at the Frank Erwin Center back on Dec. 20. Texas got the narrow win over head coach Mike Boynton and the Pokes at home last weekend by the final score of 77-74.

That gives the Longhorns a record of 7-1 (1-0 Big 12) in the midst of a lengthy hiatus in the schedule around the holiday season. Texas won’t get another game until Dec. 29 at home at the Erwin Center against Texas A&M Corpus Christi. They get another non-conference game before they return to Big 12 play to take on the No. 3 ranked Kansas Jayhawks, come Jan. 2.

The matchup with Texas A&M CC is the last of this calendar year for the Longhorns. That could give them their eighth win of the regular season slate, with their lone loss coming at the hands of the Villanova Wildcats in the Big East/Big 12 Battle.

With Christmas Day just around the corner, here’s a look into three gifts that Smart would love to have for the Longhorns for the remainder of the season.