Wolfpack facing Texas eager for redemption win

PORTLAND, Ore — The specter of the 2022 NCAA women’s basketball tournament still hangs over North Carolina State.

The Wolfpack made it to the Elite Eight two years ago and were tasked with facing the University of Connecticut — the Huskies’ 11 national championships are more than any other program — in Bridgeport, Connecticut. A 91-87 doubleovertime loss to UConn sent N.C. State home.

N.C. State (30-6) is back in the Elite Eight this season, a No. 3 seed facing top-seeded Texas (33-4) in the Portland 4 Region final Sunday. The winner moves on to the national semifinals next weekend in Cleveland.

“It’s been just a couple of years ago we were in this same position in the Elite Eight, lost in double overtime. I think our program expects to be in a position to compete for this every year. Obviously it doesn’t work out every year,” Wolfpack coach Wes Moore said.

UConn coach Geno Auriemma, who has been at the helm for all of the Huskies’ NCAA titles, said at the time it was one of the greatest games of his career. The Huskies were ranked No. 5 in the final AP Top 25 before that tournament; the Wolfpack were No. 3.

Moore was asked Saturday how he has grown since that game.

“I think you always are looking in the mirror and reflecting. Again — you lose in double overtime to go to the Final Four, it sticks with you. I mean, it haunts you. No doubt,” said Moore, in his 11th season leading Atlantic Coast Conference member N.C. State after a successful 15-year run as the head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, a Southern Conference power.

“But you’ve got to move on,” he added. “This is a new year, new team and all those things.”

Sunday’s game will mark the Wolfpack’s third overall trip to the Elite Eight. They haven’t made the Final Four since 1989, when they advanced with a 60-52 victory over UConn before falling to Louisiana Tech 84-65. It remains the furthest N.C. State gone in the tournament.

Senior guard Madison Hayes, a Chattanooga native who was a prep star at East Hamilton, was on that 2022 N.C. State team. She suggested this season’s Wolfpack squad is as good, if not better.

“I feel like this year that’s what we’ve had, the mentality of just wanting to get to a national championship, not just to the Final Four,” she said. “I feel like we’ve had that type of caliber team.”

N.C. State advanced with a 77-67 victory over Stanford on Friday. Aziaha James had 29 points and the Wolfpack outscored the second-seeded Cardinal 28-10 in the third quarter. The Big 12’s Longhorns beat fourth-seeded Gonzaga 69-47 in the late game.

Big wins along the way make this N.C. State team capable of more. Earlier this season, the Wolfpack upset UConn, which was ranked second at the time. Saniya Rivers had a career-best 33 points to go with 10 rebounds and five assists in the 92-81 victory, earning the program’s first win against the Huskies in more than a quarter-century.

It’s time for N.C. State to take the next step in the NCAA tourney, Moore said.

“I think we’ve got unbelievable chemistry. And don’t get me wrong, that team we had two years ago got beat in the Elite Eight in double overtime in the state of Connecticut against Connecticut, they had it, too,” he said. “Unfortunately we got sent up there, and unfortunately I didn’t help them maybe make one more bucket in regulation to win that thing.”

As for Moore’s counterpart, when Vic Schaefer decided he was going to Austin to take over the Longhorns, he embraced what it means to sit in the chair Jody Conradt occupied for 31 years.

And with it, he accepted the expectations that come with being in that role.

“Yeah, 34-0 to me is the standard, and that’s really hard chasing that,” Schaefer said. “But that’s what I’m chasing. We’re chasing a national championship. That’s our goal. It’s always been my goal. It’s the standard in every sport at Texas. And so it’s a miserable way to live, I can tell you because as you know, there’s only one team left when the year’s done.”

It’s been 21 years since Texas, one of the premier programs in women’s basketball, has appeared on the stage of the Final Four. The last time came under Conradt’s watch in 2003, and the two decades since have seen unfulfilled potential and a handful of near misses.

The Longhorns have been this far in the tourney twice before since Schaefer arrived from Mississippi State, where he led the Bulldogs to back-toback NCAA runner-up finishes in 2017-18, and this appears the best chance for Texas to end that Final Four drought and match a little of what Conradt accomplished.

Conradt led Texas to three Final Fours during her tenure, including the 34-0 season for the 1986 title — the lone crown in program history — that Schaefer referenced. The last Final Four appearance for Texas came in 2003, when the Longhorns lost 71-69 to UConn in the national semifinals.

“Coach Conradt … when we were walking yesterday out of the arena, she made a comment that really resonates with me. It’s the answer: There’s nothing like winning at this level,” Schaefer said Saturday. “Think about that. You can go a lot of places. Coach. Win. But there’s nothing like winning at this level. But it’s hard. People think it’s easy.”