FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 Madison Booker had 19 points and seven rebounds, fifth-year senior guard Rori Harmon had 13 assists and Texas is going to the women\u2019s Final Four for the second year in a row after a 77-41 rout over Michigan in the Fort Worth Regional 3 championship game Monday night.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns missed only one shot in the first quarter, quickly building a double-digit lead and maintaining control even through extended periods of poor shooting by both teams after that in the only regional final matching the top two seeds.<\/p>\n
Justice Carlton added 15 points, and Kyla Oldacre added 12 points and 11 rebounds for Texas (35-3), which built as much as a 40-point lead.<\/p>\n
Top-seeded Texas is going to its fifth Final Four overall, and the only other time the Longhorns had made back-to-back appearances was their undefeated 34-0 national championship in 1986 and semifinal loss the following season. Before last year\u2019s loss to South Carolina, they hadn\u2019t made it to the final weekend of March Madness since 2003.<\/p>\n
Next for Texas is Friday in Phoenix against UCLA (35-1), another top seed and a rematch against the only team to beat the Big Ten champion this season. The Bruins have won 29 in a row since a 76-65 loss to the Horns in the Players Era Championship on Nov. 26.<\/p>\n
Olivia Olson and Mila Holloway had 11 points each for Michigan (28-7), which tied the single-season school record for wins, was in the Elite Eight for only the second time and hasn\u2019t made it past that. The Wolverines finished 22.8% (13 of 57) from the field, including several missed layups.<\/p>\n
Booker, an AP All-American forward, had bookend baskets in an early 10-0 Texas run that made it 12-2. In the middle of that, she made a nifty pass to Harmon, who made an equally impressive quick flip pass to 6-foot-4 Breya Cunningham inside for an easy basket. Cunningham had 11 points.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns, who finished shooting 46.9% (30 of 64), made 11 of 12 shots in the first quarter for a 22-9 lead. They then missed 12 of their first 14 shots in the second quarter, including their top 3-pointer shooter Jordan Lee missing five from beyond the arc before Booker had consecutive baskets late for a 34-21 halftime lead.<\/p>\n
Even when missing their first seven shots out of the break, they were up 37-23 when Harmon\u2019s 3-pointer snapped the skid, and were off and running to Phoenix.<\/p>\n
Texas built as much as a 69-29 lead with just under 6 minutes left, right before Harmon left the game and went to the bench to join Booker, who didn\u2019t play at all in the fourth quarter. <\/p>\n
The largest margin of victory in an Elite Eight game was UConn\u2019s 90-50 win over Florida State in 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 Madison Booker had 19 points and seven rebounds, fifth-year senior guard Rori Harmon had…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227859,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-227858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227858","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=227858"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227858\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}