{"id":225514,"date":"2026-03-29T06:57:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:57:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/225514\/"},"modified":"2026-03-29T06:57:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-29T06:57:19","slug":"texas-stampedes-kentucky-76-54-to-advance-to-elite-8-and-matchup-with-michigan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/225514\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas stampedes Kentucky, 76-54, to advance to Elite 8 and matchup with Michigan"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 1-seeded Texas is on to the Elite Eight in the Fort Worth Region 3 after stampeding through Kentucky in their NCAA tournament<\/a> Sweet 16 matchup, 76-54, on Saturday. The Longhorns advance to face No. 2 Michigan, which beat Louisville<\/a>, 71-52, earlier in the day.<\/p>\n

Texas controlled this game from the start, going on a 15-0 run after Kentucky\u2019s Amelia Hassett hit a 3-pointer to open the scoring. The Longhorns went on to outscore the Wildcats 15-8 during the next seven minutes to end the first quarter with a 29-11 lead.<\/p>\n

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Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks told ABC sideline reporter Holly Rowe before the second quarter that his team was \u201cshell-shocked\u201d after the onslaught from Texas. The Wildcats never really recovered from there.<\/p>\n

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Texas senior guard Rori Harmon appeared to be playing at a different speed than virtually everyone else on the court. She finished with 11 points, 7 rebounds, 7 assists and 6 steals.<\/p>\n

As Yahoo Sports\u2019 Cassandra Negley pointed out in our NCAA tournament live blog<\/a>, Harmon even controlled the boards at 5-foot-6 versus Kentucky\u2019s 6-foot-5 Teonni Key. She spearheaded a ferocious Texas defense that forced 16 Wildcats turnovers, led by 8 from Tonie Morgan.<\/p>\n

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Jordan Lee led all scorers with 18 points for Texas, followed by 17 from Madison Booker, doubling her total<\/a> from the Longhorns\u2019 regular-season meeting with Kentucky. Booker also grabbed 8 rebounds with five assists.<\/p>\n

By the end of the third quarter, the Longhorns were putting on a basketball clinic, whether it was Lee and Breya Cunningham running a textbook pick-and-roll in the lane or Bryanna Preston getting a steal and dishing a no-look pass to Booker for a fast-break basket.<\/p>\n

Talking to ABC\u2019s Holly Rowe before the fourth quarter, Texas coach Vic Schaefer said he wasn\u2019t happy with his team\u2019s defense in the preceding 10 minutes. He mistakenly said the Longhorns gave up 26 points, when they actually allowed 16. But perhaps he wanted to see his players pick up their defensive intensity rather than coast with a big lead.<\/p>\n

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Schaefer may have sensed that the Longhorns were easing up as Kentucky made an 8-0 run early in the fourth quarter to trim the deficit to 65-50. But Texas then scored the next seven points to restore a large lead and quell whatever hope the Wildcats had of creating a competitive game.<\/p>\n

Clara Strack led Kentucky with 16 points and 5 rebounds, while Asia Boone contributed 11 points and Teonni Key added 10 points with 9 boards.<\/p>\n

Texas and Michigan tip off their Elite Eight matchup in Fort Worth on Monday at 7 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 1-seeded Texas is on to the Elite Eight in the Fort Worth Region 3 after stampeding through…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225515,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[87429,87430,2917,5278,3112,34522,27,29,28,15828],"class_list":["post-225514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-holly-rowe","tag-kenny-brooks","tag-kentucky","tag-madison-booker","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-rori-harmon","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-longhorns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225514","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=225514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225514\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}