Longhorn players placing Texas in the regional champion spot on the bracket after beating Kentucky on Saturday rubbed some Michigan players the wrong way ahead of Monday’s Elite Eight game in Fort Worth.
Andy Hancock/NCAA Photos/NCAA Photos via Getty Images
FORT WORTH — Texas and Michigan are going at it.
And it’s not even football season.
Doesn’t really matter because there’s so much on the line with Monday night’s Elite Eight women’s basketball showdown between the No. 1 seed Longhorns (34-3) and the only No. 2 seed remaining in the NCAA Tournament in the 28-6 Wolverines.
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What began as mutual respect for one another has somewhat deteriorated into a war of words and a decided difference of opinion.
Of course, just the clash between two of college sports’ most tradition-rich brands should be enough as well as a spot in this year’s Final Four.
But Michigan’s players took big umbrage when Texas’ Rori Harmon and Sarah Graves inadvertently put the Texas name plate in the regional championship slot on the oversized NCAA Tournament magnetized bracket board instead of the regional semifinals.
Say hello to Placard-gate. Let the feud fester.
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“We’re taking it personal,” All-American Olivia Olson, Michigan’s leading scorer, said Sunday. “All I’m going to say is, yeah, we’re going to take it personal.”
“I thought it was very cocky,” her teammate Ashley Sofilkanich said. “I don’t think that’s mature at all. I don’t want to spread any hate, but personally I wouldn’t do that. It definitely gives us some extra fuel for the game, just to be disrespected like that. I know they probably thought it was funny.”
Funny maybe because they’re stunned Michigan took the blunder so seriously. Anyone who has followed Texas basketball knows the Longhorns are as far from cocky as you can get.
Harmon was taken aback by the faux controversy and explained that the deed in the Longhorns’ locker room was “an honest mistake.”
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Graves, who assisted Harmon in attaching the placard in the wrong spot, added “It was not intentional.”
“If we recognized it in the moment, we’d quickly change it.” Harmon said. “If you’re the other team and you use it for fire, that’s fine. They can use that as fuel.”
Oh, it’s fuel all right. High octane.
When: 6 p.m. Monday
Where: Dickies Arena, Fort Worth
TV: ESPN
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Harmon’s coach, Vic Schaefer, brought up that a website he didn’t name rated the individual matchups in Monday’s game had picked “the other point guard in the matchup.”
The other point guard being the very talented Brooke Quarles Daniels, a senior who made the Big Ten All-Defensive team and has 140 career steals, 84 of them this season.
“I don’t pay attention to social media,” said the 65-year-old coach, who, well, at least paid attention to social media on this Sunday. “But that’s a bad decision. We have a lot of respect for them, but I’m not trading mine for anybody.”
Harmon wasn’t exactly cowering in fear either.
The fifth-year senior guard from Cypress Creek said she had much respect for her counterpart at Michigan but knows what she herself is capable of after helping direct Texas to a 76-54 win over fifth-seeded Kentucky in the Sweet 16 on Saturday.
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Neither guard is very tall. Harmon’s pushing 5-foot-6 at best while Daniels is listed at 5-7 with a grim-faced demeanor that’s fitting for a small guard who doesn’t shy away from contact and had an impressive nine rebounds in Michigan’s 71-52 blowout of Louisville on Saturday.
But Harmon isn’t taking a backseat to anyone.
“I don’t really pay much attention to that,” Harmon said of the website ranking. “The game hasn’t been played yet. I don’t pay it any mind. I’ll do whatever I can to help my team, and she’ll do what she can to help team win.”
So while the Wolverines outwardly stew over the presumption Texas will win Monday and advance to a second straight Final Four, the Longhorns appear to be simmering just under the surface about Michigan’s irritation.
In other words, bring it on. Let’s just say Michigan has gotten Texas’ attention, which might be dangerous for a Wolverines program that has only been to the Sweet 16 three times in school history.
The point should not be lost, however, that coach Kim Barnes Arico has a very good club and these two teams are very much mirror images of each other. Both strongly emphasize defensive play as the trademarks of their program.
Arico goes so far as to reward her Michigan players with UM stickers for details like diving for loose balls and taking charges. No one has more than Daniels.
Asked how many she has, Daniels estimated she has “like 30 to 35.”
Teammate Syla Swords corrected her, however, saying, “Oh, you’ve got more than that.”
Arico isn’t as established as Schaefer, but the 14-year head coach is building something big in Ann Arbor.
“We’re trying to get to the level of being a consistent Final Four team and have that experience,” Arico said. “Texas only has three losses. The way they pressure and defend, their toughness and relentlessness, those are things we definitely pride ourselves on. I would say the way we want to play the game is very similar, but they have a little more experience and depth.”
The Wolverines don’t have a player taller than 6-3. Texas starts 6-4 Breya Cunningham at center and brings in the impactful 6-6 Kyla Oldacre off the bench. The Longhorns also have very physical players in 6-1 forward Justice Carlton as well as 6-1 guards Madison Booker and Aaliyah Crump.
Then there’s the matter off location. Of the 11,197 on hand for Texas’ win over Kentucky on Saturday, a big majority of them were wearing burnt orange.
Arico did mention that Michigan considers this venues as “a little bit of a home game” for Texas, whose campus is 190 miles south of Dickies Arena.
In his turn at the podium, Schaefer said, “We treat this as a road game, and there are certain things we have to do on the road to win. Defense is certainly a part of what we do.”
Uh, that’s the biggest understatement of the postseason since Texas picks up opponents at the concession-stand line. So does Michigan, which applies just as much pressure.
While the Longhorns measure their defensive prowess in bruises instead of stickers, they do keep tabs on many of their standards. They proudly promote their 30 five-second violations forced — which are a dozen more than any other women’s Division I team — and 101 charges. Harmon has a team-high 40 of those.
She and Daniels have a chance to set the record straight but so much more is at stake.
That said, the brewing controversy may have legs. The Wolverines seem to think so.
As Michigan’s Alyssa Crockett said, “We were, like, ‘Did they mean to do that? ’ And we were like, ‘Ah, they definitely did.’ We’re a 2 seed. We shouldn’t be forgotten about. We shouldn’t be overlooked just because we’re not the No. 1 seed.”
Oh, trust us, Alyssa, they’ll remember.