Texas defeats Michigan to reach the Final Four for the second year in a row

FORT WORTH, Texas — In mid-February, Texas women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer wondered if his team had heart. On Monday, he told the staunchly pro-Longhorn crowd at Dickey’s Arena that his players were “Texas tough.”

After a two-decade drought ended last season, the Longhorns will advance to the Final Four for the second straight year.

Top-seeded Texas continued its dominant run to the national semifinals with a 77-41 win over No. 2 seed Michigan. The 36-point margin tied for the third-largest margin ever in the women’s Elite Eight.

The Longhorns have won 12 straight games and are now looking to add a national championship to the SEC Tournament title they won on March 8. They will face fellow No. 1 seed UCLA on Friday in Phoenix (9:30 p.m. ET, ESPN). No. 1 seeds UConn and South Carolina meet in the other semifinal.

This is the second time the Final Four has featured the same teams in consecutive years (the others being in 1995 and 1996) and the fifth time all four No. 1 seeds have advanced to the women’s Final Four.

“I am proud to be part of this group,” Schaefer said. “There will be four really elite teams with a bunch of elite players and some great coaches.”

Last season, the Longhorns reached the national semifinals for the first time since 2003, a major accomplishment for Schaefer, who was then in his fifth year in charge of the program. They came back after dominating the Wolverines from start to finish in Fort Worth Regional 3.

Junior Madison Booker led all scorers with 19 points and was named district MVP. Freshman Justice Carleton scored 15 points, senior Kayla Oldaker added 12 points and 11 rebounds, and senior Rory Harmon contributed seven points and 13 assists to tie an Elite Eight record.

Texas outrebounded Michigan 49-32 and won in a blowout despite going just 3 of 19 from beyond the arc.

“We have a lot of people who can do a lot of different things,” Harmon said.

The Wolverines, who finished the season 28-7, shot just 23% from the field. The three leading scorers this season — sophomores Olivia Olson, Sela Swords and Myla Holloway — were 9 of 42 from the field.

“That’s a credit to the defense,” Swords said. “It’s a credit to their length and physicality. We can’t just say we had a tough day. I mean, Texas is known for their defense.”

This was Michigan’s second trip to the Elite Eight, and the Wolverines were eager to test themselves against the Longhorns after playing tough non-conference and Big Ten schedules. But they never went on Monday.

“We were a team that fought through everything this year,” Michigan coach Kim Barnes Arico said. “We’ve always been able to find second gear. Tonight we couldn’t do that against Texas.”

But no one else has been able to do it this postseason either. The Longhorns won their three SEC Tournament games by an average of 19 points and their four NCAA Tournament games by an average of 35.5 points.

Early this season, Texas made it clear that it would be in the national championship picture again, as it earned back-to-back wins over UCLA and South Carolina in the Players Era Championship in November.

Texas rose to an 18-0 record before losing back-to-back games to SEC rivals LSU and South Carolina on the road in mid-January.

The Longhorns then lost to Vanderbilt on February 12, after which an angry Schaefer recalled his team.

“We don’t have a heart,” Schaefer said at the time. “We’re not tough. This is probably the softest team I’ve played in years. It translates from training… My fault. I’ll wear it. It stops now.”

“How they responded is exactly what I thought they would do. They answered the bell every night, and I think that speaks a lot about who they are, what they do.”

Texas coach Vic Schaefer

The Longhorns haven’t lost since. Schaefer said Booker was very vocal in practice the next day and the team’s mentality hasn’t wavered since.

“We never want to hear our coach say that about the team he hired because we are so much better than that,” Booker said. “I think after that game we turned things around. I hope he sees that we have courage now.”

“How they responded is exactly what I thought they would do,” Schiffer replied. “They answered the bell every night, and I think that speaks volumes about who they are, and what they do.”

Texas’ only national championship came in 1986 when the Longhorns won 34-0. Now, 40 years later, they have a chance to add a second.

Schaefer led Mississippi State to the national championship game in 2017 and 2018, falling to South Carolina and Notre Dame. He said this Texas team might be the best team he’s ever coached.

“They really get it. I guess that’s the way to put it,” Schaefer said. “They allow me to really have fun and have the pure joy of training.”