Alabama will be going against a projected first-round draft pick tonight in Texas guard Tre Johnson. The freshman phenom leads the conference in scoring with 19.0 points per game and has won the SEC Freshman of the Week honor three times. That’s the same amount of wins as Alabama freshman guard Labaron Philon, who is quite familiar with Johnson.

Philon and Johnson were teammates at Link Academy last year, a school in Missouri that’s known for its basketball prowess. The two of them led Link Academy to the No. 3 spot in the final national rankings as Johnson scored a Lions-high 15.9 points per game while Philon was third with 12.0. Philon led the team in assists per game with 4.1 and Johnson was the runner-up with 3.2.

“Labaron talked about him a little bit with us,” Alabama head coach Nate Oats said during Monday’s press conference. “He says he makes tough shots. I mean, he does. He can make some of the toughest shots you see in the country. Hopefully Labaron has got a good idea on how to guard him, but this guy takes shots that it’s almost like you don’t have a lot of control.

“[Johnson] is either going to make them miss them. So we’ve got to make sure they’re super contested. He’s 6-foot-6. He gets up on his jump shot pretty well. He’s got a decent jumper where he gets up, he can post, he can hit threes, he can drive it.”

Johnson is on fire lately, as he’s scored 15-plus points in each of the last five games, including two performances of at least 25 points. In SEC play, he’s averaging 18.4 points, and throughout the entire season, he’s had just one game where he didn’t score in the double digits.

“There’s a reason this guy was the No. 1 player in his class on different rankings for a while there. He’s talented. We’ve got to probably mix it up a little bit, whether we put size on him or guards on him. Labaron’s got some familiarity with him. We’re gonna have to mix it up a little bit on him and have a lot of different things going.”

Philon may have three SEC Freshman of the Week titles, but he’s struggled recently mainly due to an ankle injury. The Alabama guard has been limited on the floor the past five games as he’s only logged one contest with at least 10 points but hasn’t had one night with more than 25 minutes of action in that span.

This game could be a good opportunity for Philon to get back on track and revive his status as one of the most dangerous freshmen in college basketball. The Longhorns are 4-7 in SEC play and have lost three of their last four contests. Philon, already knowing the tendencies, strengths and weaknesses of Johnson, could cool down the highly touted NBA Draft prospect and turn the heater up for the Mobile, Alabama native.

Nevertheless, although Texas has struggled, Oats stressed that “they should probably have won a few more games than they have,” as the Longhorns have more talent that won’t allow the Crimson Tide to focus solely on the Johnson.

“It’s not like they’re a one-man band,” Oats said. “I mean, they’ve got shooting all over the floor, so it’s hard to just totally focus on him, and then also leave [starting guard Jordan] Pope or whoever [open]. [Starting forward Arthur] Kaluma is shooting it well, Tramon Mark is shooting it well. They’ve got bigs that are athletic. You can’t totally just focus on him, even though he leads the SEC in scoring, because they’ve got other very good players on the floor with him.”

Alabama received some good news on Monday as it moved up to No. 2 in the AP Top 25 and took over as the No. 1 team in the Coaches Poll. While this is exciting, according to Oats, the rise in the rankings mainly “puts a bigger target on our back,” especially with the Crimson Tide being the road team tonight.

Philon and the Crimson Tide will come face-to-face with Johnson and the Longhorns in the Moody Center at 8 p.m. CT on ESPN.