PHOENIX — Texas coach Vic Schaefer said Thursday his team has been at a “way different level” since he questioned their toughness following a February loss to Vanderbilt.
Schaefer made headlines when he said after an 86-70 loss on Feb. 12, “We’re not tough. It’s probably the softest team I’ve had in years. It translates from practices. … My fault. I’ll wear it. It stops now.”
Since that loss, Texas has won 12 straight, including a dominant SEC tournament championship game victory over South Carolina, to make it to a second straight women’s Final Four. The loss to Vanderbilt was the clear turning point.
“I think they grew from that night,” Schaefer said as Texas prepares to play UCLA on Friday in the national semifinals. “They always knew — coach, he cares deeply, he wants the best for us. He’s passionate. But after that night, there was a different level that they understood about me, and what I understood about them.
“This is the product that you have now. They’ve been at a way different level.”
Guard Rori Harmon said immediately after the Feb. 12 loss — and before the team knew about Schaefer’s postgame comments — that she told her teammates they had to talk then and there because “it’s time to get vulnerable.”
“I didn’t let anybody shower,” Harmon said. “I was like, ‘We’re going to talk about this. We’re going to figure this out. You can wait to shower.’ After that moment, we truly started embracing how tough it’s going to be, but also how we need to lean on each other.”
Harmon said Bryanna Preston wrote on the board in the locker room, “We don’t want to be employees. We want to be a sisterhood.”
“We’re not just here going to work,” Harmon said. “This is where we truly started understanding this is the game that we love to play. We need to enjoy playing it.”
Schaefer said that the following day, the team had a meeting and then went out and had one of its best practices of the season.
“The leadership that was in that room — Madison Booker‘s voice resonated in my practice gym that day,” Schaefer said. “To me that was the next step in her evolution as an All-American, to not only just be somebody that kids could see every day working, coming in early, spending time on her game, but stepping up and being that vocal leader, too.
“From that day forward, she’s been that.”
Booker said the loss to Vanderbilt helped everyone make a checklist of what needed to improve, including becoming a sisterhood, playing to their standard and not stressing about basketball.
“We never wanted to hear our coach say that ever again,” Booker said.
“A lot of great coaches have various different methods of trying to get the best out of their players,” guard Jordan Lee said. “Whether different individuals took it as I’m never going let him describe [us like] that as again, and we probably had a few others that were just like, ‘We didn’t have our best showing. We want to do better.'”
Now Texas has that chance again in the Final Four.
“They’ve allowed me to really have the pure joy of coaching,” Schaefer said. “I’m having as much fun as I’ve ever had in my life. Not just because we’re winning, but how we’re winning, how we’re playing, how these kids honor the game. It’s just what I envisioned that a team and a group of committed student-athletes should look like at the University of Texas.”
ESPN’s Charlie Creme contributed to this report.
