The Final Four stage was set for a battle of titans. Two SEC juggernauts—South Carolina and Texas—locked horns for the fourth time this season, and the stakes couldn’t have been higher. On one side, Dawn Staley was chasing her fourth national championship. On the other hand, Vic Schaefer and his surging Longhorns squad were ready to rewrite their program’s history. But what was supposed to be a battle for the ages turned into a whistle-filled disappointment. That even had fans coming up firing!

Texas came into this game riding a 35-3 wave, and Madison Booker was at the center of it all. Calm under pressure, clutch in the fourth- she’s been everything the Longhorns needed and more. But just six minutes into the biggest game of her career and she was hit with two quick fouls followed by another in the second. Then came the eight minutes she sat in the first two quarters, threatening her 31.3 average of minutes per game.

You could hear the collective gasp in the arena. Booker? Out? Already?

Vic Schaefer wasn’t having it. “That’s a bad call!” he shouted at the officials, echoing the same frustration his star player felt. And he wasn’t wrong. For the first time in her career, Booker picked up three fouls before halftime. That too in a Final Four game and against a team as physical as South Carolina? That’s not just bad luck. That’s momentum-shifting.

While Booker sat, South Carolina went to work. In the exact window she was off the court, the Gamecocks outscored Texas, swinging momentum in their favor. By the third quarter, the Longhorns looked flat at 20-9. South Carolina? Confident. Composed. In control.

Texas scored just six points in that entire third quarter. Six. A team averaging nearly 75 per game was brought to a standstill—not because of great defense alone, but because the player who typically drives the offense was sitting on the bench, biting her nails.

It wasn’t just fans who noticed. The South Carolina bench knew exactly how valuable Booker’s foul trouble was. Right after she picked up her second, Joyce Edwards threw up two fingers, acknowledging what everyone was thinking: “That’s two on Booker. This changes everything.”And it did. What made it worse? The lack of reciprocity in the officiating.

Top Comment by LuBrown

Coach Schaefer teaches ALL his defenders to overplay & reach for every pass…eventually you are getting the cal

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South Carolina’s players like Edwards and Te-Hina Paopao played with relentless physicality, especially in the paint, where they scored 32 points. And yet… no foul trouble. Even Chloe Kitts, who was reported to have some early foul issues, sat mostly because of performance, not officiating. As the game went away, and fans couldn’t take it anymore, they didn’t hesitate but dived into the comment section.

Dominance or Biasness? Fans question the real move behind Dawn Staley’s win.

Fans came out firing as usual. Despite the tough competition, it wasn’t South Carolina on their radar — it was NCAA officials guiding the game. “NCAA, you ruin the Final Four every f–ck-n- year with your damn refs. Let them f-ck-n- play. Putting stars on the bench in the biggest game of their life is bul—it. I’m not surprised ’cause it’s probably fixed anyway,” one frustrated fan posted on social media during the game.

And, honestly, their frustration made some sense too. While the Gamecocks’ dominance was evident in the second half, there was some sort of bias, too. Just ask Texas coach Vic Schaefer. After the game, he couldn’t help but point to a pivotal moment that changed the game’s trajectory—his star player, Madison Booker, getting into foul trouble early. And it wasn’t just that Booker picked up three fouls before halftime; it was the nature of those calls that raised eyebrows.

“Another big game in women’s college basketball where the refs are inserting themselves way too much. When will we be free of this?” wrote another spectator on X.

The third, whistled at the 2:29 mark of the second quarter, left the Longhorns stunned. Booker, the team’s leading scorer and a two-time conference player of the year, was simply trying to contest a pass when officials deemed her contact a foul.

“I didn’t think the one on the sideline was a foul,” Schaefer said postgame. “If you’re going to go off of that and allow everything else that happened in the game, it’s not it.”

At the time of Booker’s third foul, Texas was clinging to a 33-31 lead. She was subbed out immediately, and without her, the Longhorns’ offensive rhythm collapsed. South Carolina capitalized on her absence with a 7-2 run to close the half, a lead they would never relinquish.

“NCAA is making a joke out of itself by picking winners and losers. The refs are refusing to call fouls against South Carolina in this women’s Final Four game. They repeatedly maul the Texas players underneath. It’s so bad, they can’t show the replay. Fixed,” claimed a user reacting live during the fourth quarter.

Texas struggled to maintain momentum in the second half, constantly adjusting to calls that disrupted their flow. Even as South Carolina coach Dawn Staley praised her team’s defensive scheme, Schaefer subtly pointed to the officiating as a turning point.

“When Booker got in foul trouble in the first half, that seemed to be when things kind of changed a little bit,” he said

And guess what? Texas always seems to find itself in trouble when SC is there. Consider SC’s game against Texas on 9th February, wherein by the end of the first quarter alone, referees had blown the whistle a staggering 16 times. While nine fouls were called against South Carolina, seven were on Texas, halting any rhythm and turning a marquee matchup into a frustrating slog.

Back then, Staley herself came up to the player’s rescue. During an interview with ESPN’s Holly Rowe, she turned heads. “Let the players play,” she said. It was her with the kind of restrained frustration that only comes when something bigger is at stake. “People are here to watch athletes make plays — not refs take over the game.” And she wasn’t just talking about her own team.  She even extended an olive branch to Texas coach Vic Schaefer, acknowledging that both sides were being robbed of a fair, flowing battle. Something similar happened in today’s game, however, it could be that all camaraderie dissolves in the face of a championship title. We didn’t hear much this time.

“NCAA is making a joke out of itself by picking winners and losers. The refs are refusing to call fouls against South Carolina in this women’s Final Four game. They repeatedly maul the Texas players underneath. It’s so bad, they can’t show the replay. Fixed,” said a user reacting live during the fourth quarter.

“Good 1st quarter. Refs calling a ton of fouls. #HookEm,” noted another fan. Well, it seems like in this season, fouls are often in the equation regardless of the team. Consider Carolina’s dominant win over Missouri. That game, too, was also overshadowed by a parade to the free-throw line. Mizzou was whistled for 30 fouls, with their two players fouled out. It was havoc.

“Refs already with the BS fouls,” chimed in yet another fan, echoing the broader feeling. Still not convinced? Consider Kara Lawson’s Blue Devils, who were called for 18 fouls compared to the Gamecocks’ 13. Staley then got fired up a little because, again, her star players like Jadyn Donovan were stuck on the bench due to foul trouble.

“Damn refs always help Carolina so freaking much. Can’t wait till UCONN beats them on Sunday,” another spectator vented, hoping for a more even game in the championship round.

Fast forward to today’s game, SC did get an advantage as they now stand with a 74-57 victory against Texas.

But was it justified?