No. 1 overall seed and undefeated Connecticut included<\/a>. The Longhorns shot out to an early lead with balanced, efficient scoring and led by as many as 40 before resting the starters. Booker scored 19 with seven rebounds to earn Most Outstanding Player. Harmon (7 points, 7 rebounds, 13 assists) joined her, as did Jordan Lee, the third head of the snake whose off-night Schaefer isn\u2019t sweating.<\/p>\nThe winning margin is the largest of the Elite Eight, the round coaches call the most difficult since a Final Four is on the line.<\/p>\n
The Longhorns are dominating the NCAA tournament by a 35.5-point winning margin on the heels of winning the SEC tournament by 19. They\u2019ve defeated two of the fellow No. 1 seeds in the Final Four field. And that wasn\u2019t even playing the level of basketball they\u2019ve played this month.<\/p>\n
![\"FORT](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/e3f6ec6a-48a0-47fb-95f9-ed5fe26ceff7.jpeg\"\/)
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Vic Schaefer celebrates with Rori Harmon and Madison Booker in the final minutes of Texas’ win over Michigan. (Photo by Elsa\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n
(Elsa via Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Exhibit A: Graves didn\u2019t see playing time against UCLA or South Carolina. She\u2019s played in every game of the postseason after playing a total of four minutes from Jan. 29 through March 6. The senior averaged 1.2 points and 3.8 minutes her entire career with Schaefer. This month, she is 4 of 7 after making seven buckets the entire season.<\/p>\n
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Every one draws elation from the crowd.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s not like they’re chanting for Sarah Graves,\u201d she said after hitting two final-minute free throws in the Sweet 16. \u201cThey’re chanting for the idea of college sports, that there’s more than just yourself and more than your own success and kind of pouring into each other gives more to you than anything you can do for yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s the epitome of what Texas has done this year to reach a second consecutive Final Four. Their 18.2 assists are top-10; they had 21 on 30 baskets in the Elite Eight. Their depth rivals that of UConn, a stark contrast to a Michigan team that needs its three sophomore guards to all have good days.<\/p>\n
And they love and care about each other like no team Schaefer has seen. The first player to Graves at the end of the game was Booker, waving a towel and looking the happiest she had been all night. In press conferences, the National Player of the Year contender stepped in to highlight overlooked others. Harmon is an old pro at it, the Texas way.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI want them to really embrace the name on the front of their jersey, because if you represent the name on the front of your jersey, the back will take care of itself,\u201d Schaefer said this weekend. \u201cI think that’s where our kids are. They understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Texas reached back-to-back Final Fours only once, in 1986 and 1987 under legendary coach Jody Conradt. Conradt won the program\u2019s only title in 1986 and is with the team this postseason near the bench and at practices. She watched from afar as the team cut down the nets again.<\/p>\n
This time they all knew what they were doing, shortening the post-game championship process. But Schaefer doesn\u2019t want to turn the page just yet. Any talk of UCLA, their Final Four opponent, will wait until Phoenix.<\/p>\n
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First, he\u2019s going turkey hunting back home on Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m going to treat myself in the morning \u2014 it might not even take longer than 30 minutes if I can call that dude off the roost, but after that I’ll be in the office, and I’ll be getting ready for UCLA,\u201d Schaefer said.<\/p>\n
The turkeys won\u2019t agree, but things are good in Texas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT WORTH, Texas \u2014 Put her in. Put her in. The Texas crowd is ravenous for their closer.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[116,5278,1771,3112,34522,87026,27,29,28,15828,5279],"class_list":["post-228115","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-fort-worth","tag-madison-booker","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-tournament","tag-rori-harmon","tag-sarah-graves","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-the-longhorns","tag-vic-schaefer"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228115","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=228115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}