6th seed for Horns
Quest to use Schaefer’s knowledge, Collier’s power starts with Bradley
» UT draws first-round game with Bradley in San Marcos.
AUSTIN — Texas will be a No. 6 seed in the Hemisfair Region in the 2021 NCAA women’s basketball tournament, the selection committee announced Monday night. It will face No. 11 seed Bradley at Strahan Arena on Monday, March 22, at 7 p.m. ESPN2 will broadcast the game.
With a first-round win, Texas (18-9) would advance to face the winner of No. 3 UCLA versus No. 14 Wyoming on March 24. Firstand second-round games will be hosted by venues in Austin, San Antonio and San Marcos.
“Super proud of my kids, man,” first-year Texas coach Vic Schaefer said Monday night. “I'm just so happy for them. And as I told ’em tonight, this is why you keep playing. We moved ourself up a seed line, winning the game in the (Big 12) tournament and then playing well against Baylor.”
Led by overpowering junior Charli Collier, the presumptive No. 1 pick in this year’s WNBA draft, Texas looms as a threatening middle seed. And all the attention paid to Texas’ 6-foot-5 centerpiece should open up the floor for drive-and-kick attacks and clean looks along the arc.
Junior guard Joanna Allen-Taylor and sophomore guard Celeste Taylor averaged a combined 35.5 points and five 3s per game last week in the Longhorns’ two Big 12 tournament contests. And graduate transfer Kyra Lambert delivered a season-high 23 points, six 3s and six assists in an overtime win over Iowa State in the quarterfinals, a positive development after an erratic regular season.
Bradley (17-11) won three games in three days to claim the program's first Missouri Valley Conference tournament championship. Junior guard Lasha Petree (17.5 points per game) and senior guard Gabi Haack (16.5 points) have formed a potent scoring backcourt and have hit a combined 126 3pointers.
“Scout Dominique Dillingham, as soon as Bradley came up, she immediately goes and starts downloading every game that she knows I want,” Schaefer said. “And then she’ll have it on all our computers. We got the Monday game so we have a little bit of time. That’ll give us a chance to really make sure we cover all the bases and get our preparation on point.”
Texas is coming off a 6655 loss to Baylor, its third to BU this year, in the Big 12 tournament semifinals. But Schaefer was encouraged by the fight his group displayed in two more competitive outings versus the Bears following a hard-towatch 60-35 loss in Waco on Feb. 14.
“I mean it’s a five-point game with three minutes to go,” Schaefer said of last Saturday’s defeat to BU. “And I think the committee probably rewarded us a little bit. We’ve played Baylor twice in the last 14 days, went toeto-toe with them. And I just want it to be a learning process for them and understand the season is such a grind, and you just gotta stay in the grind.”
This is Texas’ seventh consecutive NCAA Tournament Texas. And Schaefer left behind a Mississippi State program that had been to four straight regional semifinals (2016-19) and three straight regional finals (2017-19). The Bulldogs finished as national runner-up in 2017 and 2018.
Schaefer knows what’s required to survive and advance as well as almost any other coach in this year’s field.
The March successes of this new Texas staff paired with the talent of Collier and her teammates positions Texas as a sort of brand name “dark horse,” a team that might sneak up on the rest of the field despite its prominent stature in a Power Five conference.
“This is why we do what we do and how we do it, to get to this point in the season,” Schaefer said. “And I think, you try to tell kids in August, they can’t see February or March. But I can. I know what we do in August and September out there on the track at 6 a.m., I know that’s going to pay off in February and March.
“This is an exciting time and I love this team, I love these kids. They’ve shown me that they’re willing to go all in.”