Women’s Final Four: Everything you need to know when South Carolina and Texas face off

The Gamecocks and Longhorns meet for the fourth time this season, and its a battle that stretches far beyond the current campaign

Since South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley and Texas coach Vic Schaefer began competing in the 2012-13 season, it’s been a lot of success for Staley and the Gamecocks. South Carolina has nine regular season titles, nine conference tournament trophies, seven Final Four appearances and three national championships.

Staley is the most prolific current NCAA coach not named Geno Auriemma and along the way the gold medalist on the court has beaten Schaefer-led teams from the bench. In 16 games, South Carolina is 15-4, including a 7-0 record in elimination or title games. On April 2, 2017, one of those wins became Staley and South Carolina’s first National Championship.

“There’s lots of coaches, y’all, that coach, and I look at them and I think it’s just a check to them, administrators too for that matter,” said Schaefer about Staley’s ability to make it to the Final Four so often. “But when you have somebody like Coach Auriemma — and I’ll even go to Dawn — you have to respect the level of consistency and excellence that they’ve done it at.”

If going by the adage that history repeats itself, it does not look great for Texas. However, it is not all doom and gloom for Schaefer against Staley. Back in 2019, Schaefer, who then led the Mississippi State Bulldogs, was the last SEC team to defeat South Carolina twice in the same season. An opportunity Schaefer has with the Longhorns Friday in Tampa Bay, Florida.

This season, there is no lack of experience between the Longhorns and Gamecocks. Friday night is the fourth time the two SEC teams played this season, marking the first time the Staley vs. Schaefer matchup hit that many games in a single campaign.

So far in the three games, it’s been back and forth results. The Gamecocks beat the Longhorns at home, lost on the road and then got the better of Texas in the SEC Tournament championship. Friday will go down to who has the last big run.

“We’re both defensive minded,” said Staley. “So it’s probably we’ve had a bigger offensive spurt throughout those games that we’ve played that were at a higher stake, and I do think it’s going to take that...I mean, we’re not going to rely on our success against them to say, ‘Hey, we beat them.’ I’m looking at the loss, you know, from this year and how we can prevent that.”

That loss included an impressive performance by the two-time First Team All-American sophomore forward Madison Booker. In Austin on Feb. 9, Booker scored 20 points with 11 rebounds. She led the Longhorns on both sides of the court, and played with more intensity on the boards, to shutdown a South Carolina team that feeds off their own high intensity play.

To Staley’s point, offensively the Gamecocks did not have much success against Texas in their lone defeat to Schaefer’s side in three games. Only sophomore guard MiLaysia Fulwiley scored in double figures and no South Carolina player grabbed more than six rebounds.

In the two wins, it was the Gamecocks defense playing the aggressor, and it limited Booker to a combined 17 points and 17 rebounds across the contests.

“She’s a bona fide scorer. Not even a bona fide scorer, she’s a playmaker. She can score the basketball with the best of them. She can play multiple positions. So she’s versatile,” said Staley. “She can facilitate. You know, she’s a really good rebounder. She’s a difficult match-up.”

So far in March Madness, Booker averages 18.8 points and 8.0 rebounds. How Friday goes will link to how effective Booker can be for Texas. Can Texas bounce back again like they did after their first defeat to Staley and the Gamecocks?

In the SEC Tournament especially, South Carolina showed that they could when they recovered from that narrow 66-62 loss in Austin to defeat the Longhorns 64-45 for the conference tournament trophy. Texas will have to contend with graduate senior Te-Hina Paopao, forward Chloe Kitts and Fulwiley, who have been a strong trio for the Gamecocks.

Against Duke in the Elite eight, it was Paopao who led the team in the second half with eight points after playing more of a facilitator role in the first half. That productivity came at a time when the Gamecocks were otherwise quiet on offense and the Blue Devils charged into the lead, albeit momentarily with South Carolina kicking it back into gear in the fourth quarter to win 54-50.

“They just needed me to step up and be there for them. And that’s what I had to do, especially wanting to win,” said Paopao. “You’ve got to do whatever it takes to win. They told me to shoot the ball, so I went out there and shot the ball.”

Fulwiley had her moment against the Maryland Terrapins in the Sweet Sixteen when she was seemingly the only Gamecock who could get through head coach Brenda Frese’s defense. Fulwiley scored a game high 23 points, with many created by the sophomore on her own. South Carolina got by with a 71-67 win.

For Kitts, the senior has been the most consistent player for Staley in the postseason, averaging 12.3 points and 8.0 rebounds per game in four NCAA tournament matchups.

At this point in the season, after so many previous matchups, the strategy more or less goes out the window. Staley knows Schaefer and Schaefer knows Staley. Their players know each other well too: their mannerisms on the court, how they link up with teammates, when they are likely to shoot.

“I feel like we do know them inside and out as much as they probably know us inside and out,” said Texas graduate senior Rori Harmon. “There’s a saying that we’ve been living by since the tournament started, but once talent meets talent and all that, it’s basically doesn’t really matter anymore.”

A win for Texas will not only give South Carolina its first multi-loss season against a single team in six years, but beating South Carolina and Staley is not the end goal. A win puts Schaefer and the Longhorns into a position to win his first title as a head coach and Texas’ first since 1986.

“Whoever gets through this semifinal and final will have done it against the best of the best. So I think for all of us, we all understand it. It’s hard to do,” said Schaefer. “And so you really get this far and it doesn’t matter, I tell my kids all the time. When they leave to go to bed at night out of the film room or team room, they’re, like, ‘Coach, you need to go to bed. I’m, like, look, I’ll sleep when I’m dead.’”