Starting forward Justice Carlton didn’t mince words after her departure from Texas, but Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer isn’t planning on changing his hard-driving ways.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Vic Schaefer ain’t changing.
Well, some of his now-former players might have had a polite suggestion or two for the Texas women’s basketball coach. Of course, those would come on their way out the door after a hard loss to eventual national champion UCLA in the Final Four semifinals and apparently even harder feelings.
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The question remains. Should he change?
Probably. For his own good. And the good of his already outstanding program. The best coaches evolve same as players.
But Schaefer said this week at the SEC meetings that he’s been reminded by his fellow coaches and administrators that his system isn’t broken. But some players appeared broken, and three of them — two of them starters Jordan Lee and Justice Carlton — left.
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Maybe it ain’t broke, but some sure reached a breaking point. Schaefer has won 30 games or more each of the past three years and won either the SEC regular season or SEC Tournament the past two seasons.
He may have to fix a few things if he hopes to return to next year’s Final Four for a third straight season because he will be forced to play freshmen before they’re ready.
He can still push the defensive envelope as much as ever, if not with the same iron hand. No one has said he’s a tyrant, but it doesn’t take much reading between the lines to understand he can be very hard to play for.
Given the landscape of college athletics, Schaefer may be too demanding for some of his players. His no-nonsense style and at times harsh critiques occasionally rub these players raw, and players who don’t adapt or like his ways can leave at the drop of a hat in the age of the transfer portal.
In addition, his emphasis on 94-foot defense every game is very taxing and not always the preferred style for young players.
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“As I talk to other coaches, as I talk to people in the industry, administrators, I am constantly told this,” Schaefer said. “I’m constantly going, maybe I need to do this, maybe I should do that, and the answer I get from all of them all of the time is ‘Why would you do anything different?’ The proof’s in the pudding. If the worst thing somebody can say is that we work hard, I’m good with that.”
This guy’s fiercely competitive at 65 and equally driven. But does that drive some away? It just did as three of his best players headed into the transfer portal and went elsewhere.
Make no mistake. Schaefer is one of the top 10 coaches in women’s college basketball and, for my money, probably top five. He’s been to four Final Fours and been a national runner-up twice. But he’s yet to crack that exclusive club of active champions with the likes of Dawn Staley, crusty Geno Auriemma and now Cori Close of the Bruins. And that omission burns inside of him.
Schaefer admits this was his best window to winning his first title and probably would have. He might have, had star Madison Booker not missed a Final Four-record 17 straight shots and made just three of her 23 shots in the game. If the ice-cold shooter had connected on maybe five or six shots, Texas might have topped UCLA instead of losing 51-44 in Phoenix.
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After all, the Longhorns’ typically relentless defense forced 23 Bruin turnovers and held down a Big Ten team that would have six players drafted by WNBA teams a month later.
But overcoming a season-low output of 41 points and a 30.8% shooting performance was asking too much.
“We just picked a bad night not to play well,” Schaefer said Tuesday evening. “I don’t know that I’ll ever get over that one. That one will haunt me the rest of my career.”
Now instead of returning four starters with tremendous momentum, Texas returns just two with some question marks and center Breya Cunningham is capable but not a difference-maker, averaging just eight points and eight rebounds a game. Schaefer admits he badly needs to develop the second part of a two-headed monster in the post as he had with Cunningham and the graduated Kyla Oldacre.
Schaefer, for his part, said he wasn’t even surprised that three of his best players chose to leave his program through the transfer portal, which is hard to believe.
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“Not really,” he said in the Hilton Hotel hallway. “Two of them, people were involved in trying to see what else was out there with them. The third one had no option to come back, but I knew what was going on. I think what that says is that this is the day and age that we’re in.”
But it says more than that.
Schaefer has said he wasn’t going to bring back disgruntled power forward Justice Carlton, who has said she didn’t enjoy her two seasons at Texas under the extremely demanding head coach and chose to transfer to Houston to join her younger sister Madison.
“My actual decision to leave Texas was pretty easy,” Carlton told the Houston Chronicle’s Joseph Duarte. “They made it pretty easy. I just did not really enjoy my time that much there. I loved all my teammates, and I have great relationships with all of them.”
However, Schaefer couldn’t have anticipated that Lee, his big-time scorer, and talented freshman wing Aaliyah Crump would also leave. Lee left for big Longhorn rival South Carolina, and Crump, the nation’s No. 5 recruit, headed out the door for Duke. All are big losses.
As much distress as Schaefer has felt the last month, he knows he has to move on.
“My new team deserves my undivided attention,” he said.
The departures of those three players, combined with the graduation of peerless point guard Rori Harmon, decimated the returning starting lineup, but not the program.
Schaefer’s winning won’t stop, but he has to quickly initiate five highly touted freshmen into his system around three-time All-American Booker, point guard Bryanna Preston and Cunningham.
Preston is lightning-quick but not as steady as Harmon and will get help from McDonald’s All-American and ultra competitive Aaliah Spaight, one of five freshmen coming aboard.
The 6-foot-2 Isi Etute will bring a lot of physicality at power forward and center, and Bri Crittendon brings scoring punch as the all-time high school scorer from the state of Colorado.
“You talk about a kid with a beautiful shot,” Schaefer said. “She’s 6-3, long and athletic. Isi is physical and has a pro body.”
Jada Bediako from Luxembourg brings three years of D1 ball from Marquette and Georgia Tech.
Small forward Addison Bjorn was Missouri’s Gatorade Player of the Year.
Shooting guard Amalia Holguin was coached by the late Kobe Bryant at the Mamba Academy and gets the most out of her 5-9 frame. Another 5-9 guard, Zya Vann, arrives from Oklahoma.
“They’re all going to play,” Schaefer said, “but there’s a chance a couple of them could be (starting).”
That should test his perfect heart rate and blood pressure like never before even though Schaefer said his cardiologist told him to quit coming in and wasting his time.
But Schaefer needs to take his own advice.
“You have to learn how to deal with it and adapt,” Schaefer said. “I’m accountable. I’m in the kid business. I don’t like losing anybody for any reason because I wear that responsibility. If I needed to do something differently, I need to do it differently. Maybe some little nuances that I could have (done). Now some kids want to be coached on their terms, and that’s not how it works. I feel like what we’ve done through the course of time is the right thing. It prepares kids for the real world.”
But it prepares some others for the portal.