NCAA Basketball
2026-03-11 - Mississippi Rebels at Texas Longhorns
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
United States : NCAA Basketball SEC Tournament First Round
Wednesday 11th March 2026 - Scheduled 7pm
11pm (British Time)
Preview
The last thing teams want to do as the regular season wound down is lose four of the last five games played, but that is the situation for the Texas Longhorns (18-13) who finished with a 9-9 record in the SEC. That means there is some work to do if the Longhorns are going to push their way into the NCAA Tournament, which will be announced on Sunday, and Texas will be under some pressure to have a decent run in the SEC Tournament this week.
First up for the Longhorns is a game against the Mississippi Rebels (12-19) who had a 4-14 record within Conference play.
If the Longhorns fans think the losses were piling up, Mississippi Basketball fans have seen the team end the season with twelve losses in thirteen games played. They are just 3-7 against the spread in the last ten games and the Rebels have struggled to impress on either side of the court.
This First Round match up may give them some opportunities to show what they can do Offensively, but the real challenge for the Rebels is finding a way to slow down a Texas Offensive unit that is amongst the very best in College Basketball.
Even through this losing run to conclude the regular season, the Longhorns were challenging opponents when they had the ball. That is expected to continue when they face the Rebels in the First Round of the SEC Tournament, who have allowed teams to hit 47% of their Field Goal attempts in the last couple of weeks.
All of that is going to keep the scoreboard pressure building on the Mississippi Rebels, who have struggled for consistency as an Offensive unit.
They are certainly going to expect to have some success considering the Longhorns have allowed teams to shoot at 51% from the field when losing four of the last five games. However, the Rebels may not fully exploit the issues the Longhorns have had when it comes to stopping the three point shot and it may end up being a game in which Texas just have too much scoring power for a struggling Conference rival.
When they met in the regular season last month, the Texas Offensive unit put up the stronger numbers by some margin and that did overwhelm the Mississippi Rebels.
Something similar looks likely to happen here and Texas can keep their hopes alive of being invited into the NCAA Tournament by coming through this First Round match with something to spare.
Prediction
These Tournament games can make the difference between trying to play for a Championship or not later this month.
Motivation is much higher on the side of the Longhorns as to what a couple of wins could do for them ahead of Selection Sunday and they should have the Offensive firepower to pull away for another relatively comfortable win over the Mississippi Rebels.
The Pick :
Texas Longhorns 83-73 Mississippi Rebels
