AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Jordan Lee scored 19 points and No. 1-seed Texas opened the women\u2019s NCAA Tournament with an 87-45 romp against Missouri State, building a 32-point lead by halftime as the Longhorns started what they hope will be a return trip to the Final Four.<\/p>\n
All-American Madison Booker had 14 points and 12 rebounds for Texas (32-3) against the overmatched No. 16-seed Lady Bears. The Longhorns advance to Sunday\u2019s second-round game against No. 8-seed Oregon, which beat No. 9 Virginia Tech 70-60 earlier Friday.<\/p>\n
Texas is a No. 1 seed for the third consecutive year. The Longhorns advanced to the Final Four last season for the first time since 2003. Texas hasn\u2019t won a national championship since 1986 when the Longhorns were the first team to go undefeated for the title.<\/p>\n
If they win Sunday, the Longhorns would head three hours north to Fort Worth for the Sweet 16.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe still have a season in front of us,\u201d Booker said, \u201cWe just have to just keep that mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Longhorns overwhelmed Missouri State early with their size and speed at both ends of the court.<\/p>\n
Kyla Oldacre, at 6-foot-6, scored 15 points was an immovable force under the basket. The quickness of Texas guards Lee, Rori Harmon and Bryanna Preston created open lanes to the basket or shut them down on defense.<\/p>\n
Texas led 19-4 after the first quarter and 44-12 by halftime. Missouri State, which won the Conference USA Tournament, made just four baskets in the first half.<\/p>\n
Kaemyn Bekemeier scored 14 points to lead Missouri State (23-13).<\/p>\n
Bekemeier said the Lady Bears were unsettled early playing in front a loud crowd of nearly 8,000 on Texas\u2019 home court. Texas has won 43 in a row at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe environment was amazing. We might have been a little intimidated at the beginning,\u201d Bekemeier said. \u201cThey are great defenders \u2026 They have a great shot to win this thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t all smooth for the Longhorns after a two-week break following their Southeastern Conference Tournament championship. They looked rusty early and missed nine of 18 layups and shot just 41% in the first half against a team they could bully on both ends of the court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re just knocking off some rust. I\u2019m sure we\u2019ll regroup,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cI anticipate we\u2019ll play a lot better.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fifth-year point guard didn\u2019t play in the fourth quarter. But her three assists moved her into 10th place in NCAA career assists with 946.<\/p>\n
Texas was bigger at almost every position and outscored Missouri State 50-12 in the paint.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were super physical,\u201d said Missouri State forward Lainie Douglas, who scored 11 points. \u201cI knew that going in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oregon coach Kelly Graves beat Texas coach Vic Schaefer to reach the Final Four in 2019 when Schaefer was the head coach at Mississippi State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2014 Jordan Lee scored 19 points and No. 1-seed Texas opened the women\u2019s NCAA Tournament with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-214092","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-austin","8":"tag-austin","9":"tag-austin-headlines","10":"tag-austin-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214092","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214092\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}