The Southeastern Conference has released its men’s basketball 2025-26 conference schedule, and the Texas Longhorns will start their 18-game league season in the Moody Center against the Mississippi State Bulldogs on Jan. 3.
They will play every team in the conference at least once during their 18-game SEC schedule, with second matchups against three opponents: Oklahoma, Texas A&M and Georgia.
The Longhorns beat two out of three of these teams during the regular season in 2024-25, but all three ended up advancing further than them in the NCAA tournament.
Texas fell narrowly to the Xavier Musketeers in the First Four round of the NCAA tournament, but they look to establish themselves as more of a postseason threat this year. Former Xavier head coach Sean Miller will be at the helm for the Longhorns this year, which could help them make more of a case for a March Madness run.
However, whether or not they make it that far or achieve a high seed depends largely on their SEC performance. The conference as a whole reached new heights last year, with its teams winning 88% of their games and accumulating a record of 185-23 during their nonconference regular season play.
Fourteen of the SEC’s 16 programs qualified for the NCAA tournament last season, with seven of them advancing to the Sweet 16.
The Longhorns are set to face the 2025 national champions, the Florida Gators, at home on Feb. 25. This will be one of their final tests of the season before the SEC tournament, and it could be a strong measure of how they match up against the conference’s toughest members.
The Gators hold the No. 2 spot in ESPN’s Men’s NCAA basketball early rankings, a list of rankings that also features Tennessee, Alabama, Auburn, Arkansas and Kentucky from the SEC.
Texas has a climb ahead if it looks to reach the top 25, but new coaching could help the team get to this next level. They have participated in the conference for just one year, and now that they are no longer newcomers, expectations will likely rise.
With just under three months until basketball season and five until conference play, it will be interesting to see what the Longhorns bring to the court this year.
