SEC basketball: Dates set for the Texas women's conference slate

The first SEC showdown for the Texas women's basketball team this upcoming season might remind some fans of a Big 12 battle.

Texas will open SEC play during the 2024-25 season with a trip to Oklahoma, the conference revealed Wednesday as it released the SEC schedules for each of its teams. The Longhorns and Sooners are set to meet Jan. 2, 2025 at the Lloyd Noble Center.

Texas and Oklahoma, of course, aren't strangers. The longtime rivals are moving from the Big 12 to the SEC together this season. Two years ago, UT and OU split the Big 12's regular-season championship. Last season, Oklahoma won the Big 12 championship during the regular season while Texas was the last team standing at the Big 12 tournament .

Here is the Longhorns' conference schedule for the 2024-25 basketball season. According to a team spokesperson, the non-conference section of UT's schedule is still being finalized:

• Jan. 2: at Oklahoma
• Jan. 5: vs. Arkansas
• Jan. 9: vs. Alabama
• Jan. 12: at South Carolina
• Jan. 16: at Auburn
• Jan. 23: vs. Tennessee
• Jan. 26: at Ole Miss
• Jan. 30: vs. Missouri
• Feb. 2: at Texas A&M
• Feb. 6: vs. Vanderbilt
• Feb. 9: vs. South Carolina
• Feb. 13: at Kentucky
• Feb. 16: vs. LSU
• Feb. 24 : at Georgia
• Feb. 27: at Mississippi State
• March 2: vs. Florida
• March 5-9: SEC tournament (Greenville, S.C.)

For Texas, its first go-around in the SEC won't be lacking storylines. When Texas heads to Mississippi State on Feb. 27, UT head coach Vic Schaefer will face a program he guided to NCAA runner-up finishes in 2017 and 2018. This schedule will also reunite Texas with former players DeYona Gaston (Auburn) , Aliyah Matharu (Florida), Kyndall Hunter (Texas A&M) and Tionna Herron (Missouri). Texas will play three games against South Carolina and LSU teams that have won the past three NCAA championships, and Alabama is returning to Moody Center on Jan. 9 after playing UT at that same venue in the second round of the 2024 NCAA tournament .

And how about some renewed rivalries? After playing just three times in the past decade, Texas and Texas A&M won't be able to avoid each other any longer. The Longhorns have played old Southwest Conference foe Arkansas twice since 1991.

Texas and Tennessee, which are two of the top-five winningest programs of all-time, are also set to meet for the first time since November 2021 after playing in all but one of the 38 previous seasons. The outlier on UT and UT's schedules over those 38 seasons was due to a pandemic-related cancellation.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: SEC basketball: Dates set for the Texas women's conference slate