TAMPA, Fla. — With 1:47 left in a Final Four game against South Carolina on Friday night, Texas women’s basketball junior Jordana Codio was sent to the scorer’s table to check in and fetch senior Shay Holle.
With fellow starters Rori Harmon and Madison Booker already on the bench and Texas trailing by 17 points, the writing was on the wall. As she walked to the Texas bench, Holle hugged her coach and teammates while fighting back tears.
A fifth-year senior, Holle was exiting her school-record 171st game. There will not be a 172nd.
Texas, doomed by its star player’s foul trouble and a second-half slump, saw its season end with a 74-57 loss to South Carolina at Amalie Arena. The loss leaves Texas two wins shy of its first national championship since 1986.
“It’s a hard day. You don’t want it to end. You want to play on Sunday,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “But we ran into a good team today, and we didn’t play that well.”
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Madison Booker gets off to a good start but runs into foul trouble
In the fourth meeting between Texas and South Carolina this season, the Longhorns landed the first punches. Boosted by Booker making her first three shots, Texas jumped out to a 12-4 lead. But with UT up by seven points midway through the quarter, Booker ran into foul trouble.
Booker picked up fouls on back-to-back possessions. In addition to South Carolina scoring four points off those fouls, Texas was forced to pull its leading scorer from the game with 3:04 left in the opening frame. By the time that Booker returned midway through the second quarter, Texas trailed by one point.
“Every time she got a foul, we would throw up a number, this is how many fouls she’s got,” South Carolina guard Te-Hina Paopao said. “When you have a great player like that you’ve just got to keep going at her because you know you’ve got to get them in foul trouble, which changes the whole aspect of the game. We took advantage of that.”
Because of the trust he has in Booker, Schaefer said he didn’t think about pulling her after her first foul. He also disagreed with Booker’s third foul, which was called with 2½ minutes left in the first half after Tessa Johnson drew contact while leaping near the UT bench to corral a downcourt pass.
“I didn’t think the one on the sideline was a foul,” Schaefer said. “If you’re going to go off of that and allow everything else that happened in the game, it’s not it. But it is what it is. It was right in front of me.”
Despite losing that early momentum and lead, Texas kept pace with South Carolina for the rest of the first half. The Longhorns entered halftime facing a 38-35 deficit.
Texas stumbles after halftime while South Carolina surges
In the weeks since Texas was beaten 64-45 by South Carolina in the Southeastern Conference’s championship game on March 9, Schaefer has repeatedly argued that things were not as bad as a 19-point loss would suggest. Schaefer has insisted that Texas didn’t play badly for the entire game. In the coach’s mind, the Longhorns just played poorly during a second quarter in which they were outscored by a 21-6 margin.
On Friday, Texas was again done in by one bad quarter. The Longhorns scored just nine points to the Gamecocks’ 20 in the third period.
Texas only committed one turnover in the quarter and South Carolina scored just four second-chance points. The Longhorns, though, struggled to shoot. Texas missed 10 of its 14 shots over those 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, South Carolina shot 56.3% from the field in that frame.
“We let their run accumulate. That’s kind of what we talked about not doing,” Harmon said. “So I think it was just a bad quarter, like it was the last game. It was just one quarter that we couldn’t put together.”
Texas would cut its deficit down to 10 points in the fourth quarter on a Jordan Lee 3-pointer, but Paopao connected on a deep attempt 13 seconds later. South Carolina only built on its lead from there.
Lee, a freshman guard, led Texas with her 16 points while Booker added 11 points. Paopao had a team-high 14 points for the Gamecocks, and Joyce Edwards contributed 13 points, 11 rebounds and six assists.
What’s next for Texas?
The NCAA’s defending champion, South Carolina (35-3) advances to Sunday’s title game where it will face UConn (36-3). South Carolina was one of two teams this season to beat Texas, which won the third-most games in school history. The Longhorns were making their first appearance in the Final Four since 2003.
“I’m sitting here realizing we lost four games this season and we only lost to two people, two teams,” Harmon said. “Obviously give credit to South Carolina and the other team that beat us. We’re 35-4 and we lost to two teams. So that in itself just shows how hard we can push and how great we are through adversity as a team. It just shows our passion for the game of basketball and just our passion for each other.”
With its season over, Texas must now figure out what’s next.
Schaefer knows that Holle and senior forward Taylor Jones have exhausted their eligibility. Harmon has a couple days to decide if she’ll declare for the WNBA Draft, but the point guard can return to Texas and use the medical redshirt she earned for the 2023-24 season. Senior forward Aaliyah Moore also has a medical redshirt to use if she desires.
Additionally, Texas will have to navigate the transfer portal while also trying to keep its own roster intact. Aaliyah Crump, the No. 5 recruit in the Class of 2025, is the team’s only incoming freshman.
But on paper, Texas should retain plenty of talent from a team that won a share of the SEC championship this season. Booker was an All-American and the SEC Player of the Year, both Lee and Bryanna Preston emerged as freshmen and juniors Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda and Kyla Oldacre became major role players.
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