Texas Basketball: Is this the best Longhorns team of the last 20 years?

On the night of Jan. 13, Texas basketball will try to take their next step forward in getting a potential one-seed in the NCAA Tournament this season.

What we’ve learned so far about No. 4 ranked Texas basketball this season, in a special start through 11 games, is that this team feels a whole lot different under the direction of head coach Shaka Smart. It might be all of the pieces finally coming together, or riding the momentum that was built up down the stretch last season (or both). But Texas is on a mission and is a real contender for a single digit seed in the NCAA Tournament at this moment.

In their last game, the top five ranked Longhorns reached double-digit wins on the season with a big road triumph over the No. 14 ranked West Virginia Mountaineers in Morgantown back on Jan. 9 by just a two-point margin. That moved Smart and the Longhorns to sport a record of 10-1 (4-0 Big 12) so far this season, with their lone loss coming to a top three ranked team by a close margin in head coach Jay Wright and the Villanova Wildcats.

Depending on how Texas can sustain this insane level of success on the hardwood in the near future, this could definitely wind up being one of the best teams for this program in the last two decades. Since the turn of the century, Texas had multiple AP High rankings in the top six, but only finished in that same slot at season’s end on one occasion.

Sustaining this level of success, including making an NCAA Tournament run to at least the Elite Eight or Final Four, could get the Longhorns to finish in the top five this season at the very least. But that level of success is something that definitely eluded Smart’s Longhorns teams so far.

What could work well in the Longhorns favor is the pure amount of talent and depth present up and down the rotation. Two great examples of versatile and underappreciated players powering this team so far through 11 games are redshirt junior shooting guard/wing Andrew Jones and senior guard Matt Coleman.

Jones is a great example of a player who is giving the Longhorns the explosiveness and volume scoring presence they need on the offensive end of the floor. His on-ball defense has improved pretty great this season too.

And Coleman is one of the most underrated and versatile point guards not just in the Big 12, but in the entire country. He’s having another stellar season where he stands out on both ends of the floor and commands his role just about as well as any player around the college hoops landscape.

That doesn’t even dig that deep into the weeds. Texas also has key players in the mix like breakthrough sophomore power forward Kai Jones, ultra-talented freshman power forward Greg Brown, experienced senior center Jericho Sims, talented scoring guard Courtney Ramey, etc. to push this team forward for the rest of the season.

All in all, before this Longhorns team could be considered a contender as the best team on the Forty Acres since the turn of the century, they have to sustain this level of success at least throughout the rest of the Big 12 slate. An undefeated start through four games is a good spot to be in now, though.

Next up for Smart and this rolling Longhorns team is a meeting with the No. 15 ranked Texas Tech Red Raiders and head coach Chris Beard at home at the Frank Erwin Center on the night of Jan. 13. Texas has a two-game homestand before hitting the road again to face the Iowa State Cyclones in Ames on Jan. 20.