PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Madison Booker has led Texas’ offense all season, so it was little surprise that she hit a jumper less than a minute into the game to give the Longhorns an early two-point lead.<\/p>\n
It was the last shot she would make for more than three quarters.<\/p>\n
The AP All-America forward missed her next 17 attempts from the field as the Longhorns fell to UCLA 51-44 on Friday night in the national semifinals of the women’s Final Four.<\/p>\n
Booker recovered somewhat in the final minutes as the Longhorns made a frantic push, contributing a pair of baskets to help cut the deficit to 47-44 with less than 30 seconds remaining. The rally ended when Booker was stuffed by UCLA’s 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts on a driving layup with 20 seconds remaining.<\/p>\n
Trailing 49-44 in the final seconds, Booker slipped and fell to the ground while trying to make a play, ending a night to forget. She finished 3 of 23 from the field, missing all four of her 3-point attempts, and had six points.<\/p>\n
It’s the second straight year Booker’s season has ended with a disappointing game. She had just 11 points and one rebound while fighting foul trouble in a 74-57 loss to South Carolina in last year’s national semifinals.<\/p>\n
The loss wasn’t all Booker’s fault as the Longhorns struggled offensively the entire night. Texas shot just 30.8% from the field and only one player \u2014 Kyla Oldacre \u2014 finished in double figures with 11 points.<\/p>\n
Texas was one of the hottest teams in the country coming into the Final Four, riding a 12-game winning streak into Friday\u2019s game. During that stretch, the Longhorns beat fellow Final Four participant South Carolina by 17 points in the SEC Tournament championship and crushed Michigan 77-41 in the Elite Eight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AP) \u2014 Madison Booker has led Texas’ offense all season, so it was little surprise that she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234530,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[46987,33399,5278,202,196,49691,197,942,82,84,83,9915,27,90566],"class_list":{"0":"post-234529","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio","8":"tag-kyla-oldacre","9":"tag-lauren-betts","10":"tag-madison-booker","11":"tag-package-100502-member-choice-sports-option","12":"tag-product-30599-ap-sports-news-s-wire-only","13":"tag-product-40774-ap-arizona-sports-only","14":"tag-product-40776-ap-california-sports-only","15":"tag-product-40815-ap-texas-sports-only","16":"tag-san-antonio","17":"tag-san-antonio-headlines","18":"tag-san-antonio-news","19":"tag-south-carolina","20":"tag-texas","21":"tag-texas-madison-booker"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234529","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=234529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234529"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}