Texas hosts Northwestern State in final non-conference game

A 10-day vacation for the Texas Longhorns ends 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. Horns open in College Station against no. 13 Aggies before facing 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 positioned it as the most competitive league, just in time for Texas’ arrival.

So the conference gauntlet won’t come off after January, which could serve as a pivotal month as Texas moves from its extremely soft non-conference slate to the SEC grind.

Critical health issues 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 gave 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 ease the pressure on senior forward Ze’Rik Onyema. And Johnson is of course 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 among 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 6 p.m. trip. 11 a.m. Central on SEC Network+.

There are some trends to note for Texas – the Horns rank as No. 7 nationally in effective field-goal percentage at 59.1 percent, leads the country in turnover rate at 12.8 percent and is fourth in three-point percentage at 41.5 percent. Of course, those aren’t opponent-adjusted metrics, as Texas has faced the No. 1 power of the schedule. 358, according to KenPom.com.

So the adjusted efficiency rating of 39th offensively and 38th defensively is an attempt to quantify what the raw efficiency numbers for Texas say about the awful strength of schedule.

Expect a sharp drop in raw numbers with the stratospheric rise in the level of competition that begins after facing another team not worth discussing in any specificity.