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Michael Voepel
Birmingham, ala. – For the first time since 2003, the Texas Longhorns return in the Final Four Female.
The seeded n ° 1 of the Birmingham Regional 3 wore the seeded n ° 2 TCU 58-47 in the elite eight on Monday evening and now goes to Tampa.
Madison Booker, the player of the dry year, led Texas with 18 points and six rebounds, while Rori Harmon – back this season after missing most of the previous campaign with a knee injury – raised 13 points and five assists.
The horns, appearing in the first Elite Eight of the program, put an end to season 34-4.
The center of TCU Sedona Prince, who committed a fault with 6:32 to play, ended his career with four points and nine rebounds, while Texas did a fantastic job by keeping it. TCU goalkeeper Hailey Van Lith also saw his five -season university career, with 17 points and eight rebounds. The two should be chosen from the WNBA draft in April.
The last time the Texas played in the last weekend of the season, the Jody Conradt renowned temple still led the Longhorns. They lost against Diana Taurasi and the possible UCon champion in the national semi-finals.
Now, 22 years later under the coach Vic Schaefer, the Texas hopes to add a second trophy in the national championship to that of the Conradt team won in 1986 to cap a 34-0 season. These Longhorns, during their first dry season, are now 35-3 and will face the co-owner of the conference regular season season on Friday.
Southern Carolina has opened its doors as a 4.5 -point favorite at ESPN Bet.
It will be the fourth meeting this season between the Longhorns and Gamecocks, who divided their regular season games before the South Carolina won the final of the SEC Tournament against Texas.
Friday will also mark the first time that two SEC teams have gathered in the national semi-finals or later since the match for the title 2017, when Dawn Staley and the South Carolina beat a state team of Mississippi, then trained by Schaefer.
It will be Schaefer’s third trip in the Final Four as a chief coach; He also took the Mississippi State to the championship match in 2018, losing against Notre Dame. And he was assistant to the Texas A&M team who won the 2011 National Championship.
Schaefer becomes the fifth coach of the female history of the NCAA tournament to take several schools in the Final Four, joining Gary Blair (Arkansas and Texas A&M), Kim Mulkey (Baylor and LSU), Marianne Stanley (Old Dominion and Stanford) and C. Vivian Strnger (Cheyney, Iowa and Rutgers).
The defense was the name of the match all the season for Texas, which forced at 21 reversals on Monday evening when he hired only eight.
Texas held 26.7% of shooting after beating Tennessee 67-59 on Saturday in Sweet 16, a match in which Longhorns held the Lady Flights at 37.9% of the field and their second lowest point of the season.
ESPN research has contributed to this report.
