FORT WORTH, Texas — Rori Harmon came back to Texas for another chance to win a national championship. The 5-foot-6 spark-plug point guard and her Longhorns are one win away from getting back to the Final Four for the second year in a row.
Harmon got them off to a fast start with an all-around performance, playing through a jammed right middle finger to finish with 11 points, seven assists, seven rebounds and six steals, and top-seeded Texas beat fifth-seeded Kentucky 76-54 in an all-Southeastern Conference matchup in the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament’s Sweet 16 at Dickies Arena.
“Yeah, the urgency that I play with is that when you lose right now, you’re done, so that’s constantly in my mind,” said Harmon, in her fifth and final year in the program. “There has to be a certain urgency and intensity that we play with to not let any team try to work their way back or anything. I think that’s how we came out today.”
Jordan Lee scored 18 points, while All-America forward Madison Booker had 17 points, eight rebounds and five assists for the Longhorns (34-3), who have an 11-game winning streak and are in the Elite Eight for the third year in a row.
Texas, which last year went to the Final Four for the first time since 2003 and won its only national title in 1986, will play second-seeded Michigan of the Big Ten on the same court Monday night in the Region 3 final, the only regional final this year matching the top two seeds. The winner moves on to Phoenix next weekend for the Final Four.
After Amelia Hassett hit a 3-pointer on the first shot of the game for the Wildcats (25-11), their only lead didn’t last long. Texas responded with 15-0 run, in the middle of which Harmon had three defensive rebounds and four assists in a span of 90 seconds.
“I thought Rori was really special on the ball,” sixth-year Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer said. “I just love how we opened the game. I love how we came out ready to go. I love how we defended the first half. I just thought we were really, really locked in. Our transition was obviously very good early, and now that was off of our defense.”
Harmon’s early spurt began with a defensive rebound and an assist on Justice Carlton’s 3 that made it 5-3 and put the Longhorns ahead to stay. Harmon then also had assists on the next three consecutive fast-break layups, one by Carlton before two by Lee that came after Harmon rebounded Kentucky misses.
Clara Strack, the 6-5 center who came from Virginia Tech with coach Kenny Brooks two years ago, led the Wildcats with 16 points. Asia Boone had 11 points, while Teonni Key added 10 with nine rebounds. Kentucky, which has never been past the Sweet 16, also lost to Texas during the regular season, 64-53 on Feb. 9 in Austin.
“They were on a different planet today, especially that first quarter. They came out and they were aggressive,” Brooks said. “They play right to the rules. The rules allow a certain level of physicality. They play right to it. They don’t go over it. They play right to it. Today, I thought they did a tremendous job of pushing us off of our mark.”
Even after jamming her finger late in the first quarter, Harmon had nine points, five rebounds, five assists and six steals by halftime.
“It’s not that big of a deal, but yeah, I have jammed this middle finger quite a few times this year, so that’s basically what happened,” she said. “It’s pretty swollen right now, but like Coach said, I think in the heat of the moment, you kind of forget about it obviously.”
That first-half performance matched the 5-5-5-5 line Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo, who has an NCAA single-season record 199 steals, had in the Fighting Irish’s NCAA opener against Fairfield.
The Longhorns finished the game with a 20-0 advantage in fast-break points, with 14 of those coming by halftime when they had a 48-26 lead.
Texas has won its three NCAA tourney games this year by a combined margin of 106 points. This was the closest after winning both of its games in the first two rounds at home by 42 points, including 100-58 over Oregon to advance to the Sweet 16 site only about 200 miles from the Austin campus.
After Harmon’s assist-filled spurt, the bigger run for Texas ended midway through the first quarter after a steal by Harmon, who passed to Booker, who then assisted on a layup by Lee for a 15-3 lead. Texas maintained a double-digit lead the rest of the game.
Michigan players celebrate a 3-pointer by Olivia Olson (1) during an NCAA tournament Sweet 16 game against Louisville on Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas. (AP Photo/LM Otero)
Michigan 71, Louisville 52
Olivia Olson and her Michigan teammates already had weathered a six-minute scoring drought to start the game when they scored 17 consecutive third-quarter points against the Cardinals.
“When we just take a breath and relax, we have so much fun,” Olson said. “So just that third quarter we were just really playing loose and having fun, and I think that’s what ignited our run.”
Olson scored 19 points, fellow sophomore Syla Swords added 16, and the Wolverines overcame a sluggish start to eliminate third-seeded Louisville, an Atlantic Coast Conference program.
The Wolverines had a 16-0 run in the second quarter to erase an 11-point deficit, their biggest of the game, then broke a tie in the third with the 17-0 burst that let them cruise to their second Elite Eight, both in the past five seasons.
Michigan (28-6) tied a program record for victories and will now seek the program’s first Final Four appearance.
“It took us a minute to settle,” said Kim Barnes Arico, who’s in her 14th season as head coach of the Wolverines. “But then once we did, I think our confidence exploded and we just were really disruptive on the defensive end, which we pride ourselves with being, and that allowed the floodgates to open on offense.”
Elif Istanbulluoglu had 18 points but was the only scorer in double figures for the Cardinals (29-8), who shot 35% and were outscored 49-16 over a two-quarter stretch from midway through the second to the middle of the fourth.
“It was not a good performance at all by us. It was actually the worst we’ve had all year,” said Louisville coach Jeff Walz, who has overseen all 13 of the program’s Sweet 16 trips during his 19 seasons. “It’s what they did, but a lot of it was because what we didn’t do.”
Olson, the top scorer among a bevy of sophomores leading both teams, missed four of her first five shots, and the Wolverines didn’t score until Swords’ bucket made it 8-2 with 3:46 left in the first quarter.
Te’Yala Delfosse, who had 10 points, eight rebounds and two blocks, had a 3-pointer during the second-quarter run that she capped with a three-point play for Michigan’s first lead at 28-25.
Swords and Olson connected on consecutive 3-pointers late in the 17-0 run that put Michigan in control for good. The sophomore standouts combined to go 9-of-16 from the field in the second half.
Louisville had won both of the previous meetings between the programs in the NCAA tournament, including a victory four years ago that sent the Cardinals to the Final Four.
“Early in my career, it seemed like we got them in every bracket,” Barnes Arico said. “I’m not up here complaining. I know there’s been a lot of coaches come through that said they get the same. So I was not looking forward to playing them at all, but heck, it feels so great to be on the other side of that.”
Louisville’s three double-figure scorers — Imari Berry, Tajianna Roberts and Laura Ziegler — combined to make just eight of 34 attempts from the field. They were 2-of-12 from 3-point range as the Cardinals finished 3-of-14 (21%) from deep.