BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — Vic Schaefer has been in the coaching business for nearly four decades, and now he's part of an elite group.
Texas' 64-year-old coach became the fifth person to lead two programs to the Final Four of the women's NCAA Tournament when the Longhorns beat TCU 58-47 on Monday night.
The win came eight years to the day after one of Schaefer's greatest victories, when he was at Mississippi State. The Bulldogs ended UConn's 111-game winning streak on a last-second shot by Morgan William in overtime to advance to the national championship game.
“Pretty special moment. I think of Morgan William all the time, not for that shot, but who she was and what she brought to that team. Had some really great point guards in the course of my career,” he said.
The latest standout point guard is Rori Harmon, who helped guide Texas to its first Final Four since 2003. Always the coach, Schaefer made sure Harmon knew how to get up the ladder to cut down the net for winning the region.
“He’s always going to be looking after us for sure,” Harmon said. “Every situation, even climbing up a ladder, it's kind of dangerous. He’d be right there just in case. Shows what type of person he is.”
The next task for Schaefer, who joined his mentor Gary Blair, C. Vivian Stringer, Marianne Stanley and Kim Mulkey in the two-team club, is to beat defending champion South Carolina and Dawn Staley.
It took him five years to get Mississippi State to the Final Four — he returned with the Bulldogs in 2018 — and it's taken him the same amount of time with the Longhorns. He hopes for a different outcome.
After the win over UConn in 2017, the Bulldogs fell short against the Gamecocks in the championship game. That season, his team lost all three meetings to South Carolina. This time, Texas has one victory in three meetings already against its Southeastern Conference rival.
“We played really well at our place, had a bad quarter in the SEC Tournament,” Schaefer said. “They put it on us in the first half at their place. We have a ton of experiences to draw from and learn from. We got to learn and be different.”
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