Rodney Terry believes Texas has a high ceiling, their best basketball is yet to come

No. 7 Texas has proven to be one of the nation’s best teams so far in ’22-’23 at 15-2 overall. Even with the off-court fallout of the firing of Chris Beard, the Longhorns have stayed the course. However, after knocking off Texas Tech 72-70 to get their fourth win in the Big 12, Terry believes his team is going to be even better down the stretch.

Terry spoke about the path his team is on during his postgame press conference on Saturday. He said the Longhorn’s ceiling is still very high as of now. As they continue to improve, though, he hopes they’ll be playing their best ball at the right time.

“I’m still really excited about this team because, again, I think our ceiling is still high,” said Terry. “We haven’t played our best basketball (yet). To be honest with you, you don’t want to be playing your best basketball in January. You want to play your best basketball in February or mid-February and the end of March.”

“Again, this team has really focused on trying to fix the things that we need to fix,” said Terry. “There’s no doubt in my mind we’ll try to continue to work and get better as the season goes along.”

Texas is one of the more balanced teams in the country as we reach mid-January. On offense, they’ve averaged 81.5 points per game. They’ve posted a Top-30 offensive rating as well as a Top-20 adjusted efficiency on offense per KenPom so far. Defensively, they’re holding teams to 66 points per game, which is even skewed considering they gave up 116 points to Kansas State. The Longhorns are also posting a Top-35 defensive rating and Top-30 adjusted efficiency on defense.

Still, although the AP Poll has ranked them as a Top-10 team all season, Terry still believes their best ball is still in front of them. Now, as they look to prove that moving forward, Texas has some tall tests this week as they’ll travel to Ames and play No. 12 Iowa State tonight before heading to Morgantown and playing West Virginia this weekend.