Texas basketball faces a season defining three-game stretch

To say the 2022-23 Texas basketball season has been one of twists and turns would be an understatement. You would be hard-pressed to find one person who thought Chris Del Conte would fire former head coach Chris Beard in year two of his tenure after such a promising year one for Beard in his return to the Forty.

Despite Beard’s poor off-the-court decision-making that led to his indefinite suspension on Dec. 12 and his firing on Jan. 5, the Longhorns have not missed a beat on the court.

Texas currently sits with a 17-4 (6-2 Big 12) record, its best start since the 2013/14 season. Rodney Terry holds a 10-3 record as the interim head coach and has seemingly galvanized this veteran-laden squad.

The Longhorns’ 6-2 mark in Big 12 play has them tied for first in the conference with Iowa State and Kansas State. Baylor, Kansas, and TCU sit just one game behind the leaders at 5-3.

Based on results-driven data, predictive metrics, and the eye test, the Big 12 is leaps and bounds the best college basketball conference in America. Not one spot on the 18-game gauntlet of a schedule offers any sense of relief or a place to hide. Actually, quite the opposite is true.

At some point this season, every team in the Big 12 will encounter a three-or-four-game stretch where they consecutively run into top 15 teams. That is just the nature of the beast when you play in a conference with 60 percent of its teams ranked inside the top 15 of the most recent AP Poll.

For Texas, that stretch has arrived.

The Longhorns welcome the 11th-ranked Baylor Bears into the Moody Center on Monday night. They will then travel to Manhattan, Kansas, on Saturday, Feb. 4, to take on the seventh-ranked Kansas State Wildcats, followed by an 85-mile drive east to Phog Allen to take on No. 8, Kansas, on Monday, Feb. 6.

Rodney Terry and No. 10 Texas basketball face a critical three-game stretch starting early this week

On top of that, Texas is coming off a loss to No. 4 Tennessee where the Volunteers completely outclassed them. If the Horns are not careful, they could let one bad loss balloon to their first four-game losing streak in three years.

The Longhorns must string together full 40-minute performances over this three-game stretch. Too often has this team been lulled to sleep for certain segments of a game that cause them to fall into a deep hole or give up a double-digit lead. You can overcome that against a team like Oklahoma or Texas Tech. Against Baylor, Kansas, and Kansas State? Not so much.

In all three of these games (and the rest of the season, for that matter), Texas should look to push the pace on offense and get easy looks in transition. One of the main reasons this offense is one of the most deadly in the conference is because of guys like Marcus Carr, Tyrese Hunter, and Timmy Allen pushing the ball in transition.

Texas still needs to be a better team in the half-court and will continue to run into scoring droughts if they rely on their half-court offense, but getting out and running can help minimize offensive letups.

Although Carr has been playing at an All-Big 12 level, this team will only be able to achieve its full potential with major contributions from Hunter. Over the last seven games, the sophomore guard has averaged 6.3 points while shooting an abysmal 28.6 percent from the field and 26.1 percent from deep.

This upcoming stretch would be as good of a time as ever for one of the top-ranked transfers in the country to live up to his billing.

With all of that said, even an 0-3 stretch over the next eight days doesn’t kill you. Kansas and Baylor have already suffered three-game losing streaks in Big 12 play. On the flip side, these results will tell us a lot about the metal of this team.

If Coach Terry can win two of these next three games, we might have a top-five team on our hands. If he drops all three, Texas may be closer to the 20th-best team in the country.

The rubber will undoubtedly meet the road over the next eight days as we are set to learn a lot about the makeup of this Texas basketball team.