{"id":225158,"date":"2026-03-28T23:41:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T23:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/225158\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T23:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T23:41:08","slug":"texas-rides-historic-start-past-kentucky-into-elite-eight-for-5th-time-under-vic-schaefer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/225158\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas rides historic start past Kentucky, into Elite Eight for 5th time under Vic Schaefer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas<\/a> made just two Elite Eight appearances over its previous 30 seasons before Vic Schaefer was hired ahead of the 2020-21 season. With Saturday\u2019s 76-54 win over Kentucky<\/a>, the Longhorns advanced to their third straight Elite Eight and to the regional finals for the fifth time in Schaefer\u2019s six-year tenure.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have tremendous support at Texas,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cOur kids, I think they feel the responsibility of being at the University of Texas. It\u2019s not for the faint of heart. It\u2019s not a place that you go to be good. It\u2019s just not. … We\u2019re chasing greatness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sarah Graves gets love from hometown crowd<\/p>\n

The crowd at Dickies Arena chanted for senior Sarah Graves, a Keller product, to shoot the two free throws tied to a Kentucky flagrant foul that came with under a minute remaining in the game.<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

Get the latest D-FW sports news, analysis and opinion delivered straight to your inbox. Plus, Kevin Sherrington’s A La Carte.<\/p>\n

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Texas coach Vic Schaefer sent Graves to the line and she made both shots.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s just a special kid,\u201d Schaefer said. \u201cI actually asked another player to shoot the free throws and she pointed to Sarah. She said \u2018Coach, let her shoot.\u2019 That\u2019s the kind of team I have.\u201d<\/p>\n

Historic first half<\/p>\n

The Longhorns led Kentucky 48-26 at the half, entering halftime with its largest lead ever in the NCAA tournament. Texas shot 59% from the floor in the first half and outrebounded Kentucky 24-12.<\/p>\n

Rori Harmon plays through hand injury<\/p>\n

The senior guard finished with 11 points, 7 assists and 7 rebounds on Saturday, despite injuring her hand in the first quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve jammed this middle finger quite a few times this year, so that\u2019s basically what happened,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty swollen right now … I missed two free throws, so I\u2019m going to blame it on that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Struggles at free throw line<\/p>\n

Texas dominated the boards, the turnover battle and the fast break in its dominant win over Kentucky, but it went 5-of-15 from the line on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe haven\u2019t done that all year,\u201d Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. \u201cAnd that was one of the focuses. … That was the one thing we probably didn\u2019t do very well. … I\u2019m glad we got to the line 15 times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan Lee leads Texas to blowout win over Kentucky in women\u2019s Sweet 16 matchup<\/a>Texas Longhorns\u2019 path to women\u2019s Final Four runs through SEC, starting with Kentucky<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more college sports coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Find more Texas coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas made just two Elite Eight appearances over its previous 30 seasons before Vic Schaefer was hired ahead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1638,3688,154,27,29,537,28],"class_list":["post-225158","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-brief","tag-colleges","tag-sports","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-longhorns","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225158","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=225158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}