FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) \u2014 Rori Harmon doesn’t hear many speeches from Jody Conradt, the retired Texas women’s basketball coach who led the Longhorns to their only national championship 40 years ago.<\/p>\n
The fifth-year point guard<\/a>\u00a0figures there’s not much need for many words.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel that national championship presence,\u201d Harmon said. \u201cIt\u2019s that undefeated season presence around us. That\u2019s almost like all you need.\u201d<\/p>\n Conradt was around the program long before the latest effort by the Longhorns to add a banner to the one raised for the 34-0 team of 1985-86.<\/p>\n Top-seeded Texas will chase a second consecutive Final Four berth when it faces No. 2 seed Michigan in the\u00a0Fort Worth Regional 3 final Monday night<\/a>.<\/p>\n Conradt’s team didn’t have to leave Austin to reach the Final Four in 1986, winning three times there before going on to Lexington, Kentucky, where they beat Cheryl Miller and Southern California for the title.<\/p>\n These Longhorns didn’t have to leave Texas for\u00a0March Madness<\/a>, winning twice in Austin before going 200 miles north to Fort Worth for a\u00a0Sweet 16 victory over Kentucky<\/a>\u00a0that set up the meeting with the Wolverines.<\/p>\n Conradt was behind the bench against the Wildcats and will be there again Monday night. The 84-year-old goes to practice when she can, sometimes gives players puzzles (Jordan Lee said she and fellow guard Bryanna Preston got a 1,000-piece behemoth recently) and will on occasion offer a few words of encouragement or advice.<\/p>\n Her presence is a reminder of the last time the Texas program was among the elite \u2014 now that it finally appears to be again under Vic Schaefer, who was born in Austin and remembers first meeting Conradt in 1990 when he was the first-year coach at Sam Houston State in the prison town of Huntsville, about 150 miles from the UT campus.<\/p>\n \u201cI think they\u2019re aware,\u201d Conradt said. \u201cWe just celebrated the 40th year, and the exes all came back and that team was recognized. I know they talked about it as a team, and I think they would like to be the second team to win the national championship.\u201d<\/p>\n Texas’ Final Four berth last year was its first since 2003. The Longhorns lost to South Carolina in the semifinals, so they’re still looking for their first trip to the championship game since winning it all.<\/p>\n