In the wild east of NCAA women’s basketball, two coaching legends are finding themselves on the wrong side of the scoreboard. Their teams, South Carolina and LSU, are struggling to maintain their grip on the top spots, while a new sheriff is rolling into town – the Texas Longhorns. With their impressive winning streak, dominant defense, and Madison Booker’s scoring prowess, the Longhorns are leaving a trail of misery in their wake, and Staley and Mulkey are taking notice.

The numbers don’t lie – Texas has racked up a national-best 13 Quad 1 victories, boasts a NET ranking of 3, and has won 10 consecutive games, including consecutive victories over three top-10 teams. Their resume is so impressive that even the NCAA selection committee has taken notice, tabbing them as one of the top four seeds in the tournament. Recently, the national reporter Elle Duncan couldn’t help but highlight the dangers Texas poses to other teams, saying, “Texas had to face three ranked teams in a row….. in that span, three straight games have to beat South Carolina and then Tennessee and then LSU.”

In contrast, Dawn Staley’s South Carolina Gamecocks are experiencing uncharacteristic struggles, particularly on the rebounding front. Led by forward Madison Booker, who tallied 20 points and 11 rebounds, the Longhorns handed South Carolina a 66-62 defeat, snapping the Gamecocks’ 57-game SEC winning streak. This loss, combined with another defeat to UConn, has exposed the Gamecocks’ vulnerability on the boards, a stark contrast to their usual dominance. This recent slump, with two losses in their last three games, marks the Gamecocks’ first two-loss stretch since 2019.

And more recently, Mulkey’s LSU Tigers have also stumbled, losing to Texas in a top-five showdown. The Tigers’ high-powered offense, which averages 87.4 points per game, was held in check by the Longhorns’ stifling defense, which limited them to just 58 points.

Texas’s win over LSU was also proof of their ability to win games even when they don’t ‘necessarily’ play well. The Longhorns shot a dismal 7-37 in the first half and were down by 12 in the third quarter. However, they fought back, with Booker converting four consecutive free throws in the last 24 seconds to seal the win. As Duncan further noted, “Here’s the thing that Texas game, the thing that you want to look for from your teams are, even in games where they didn’t play well, where they looked bad, can they still pull out a win against a really really good opponent and they did that against LSU”. 

With the NCAA tournament approaching, Texas is making a strong case for itself as a national championship contender. In the latest AP poll, Texas moved up one spot to No. 2, while South Carolina dropped two spots to No. 6, and LSU fell one spot to No. 7. Now that’s a call for 67 teams heading to the March Madness to stay on their toes.

As coach Vic Schaefer said, “If anybody else has done what we’ve done, with the resume we have, I’m all ears.”

Texas’ March Madness prospects

With the NCAA women’s tournament just around the corner, the stage is set with questions. UCLA’s dominance throughout the regular season was recently challenged by a 71-60 defeat to USC, their rivals. Meanwhile, UConn’s Paige Bueckers has the daunting task of leading the Huskies to a first championship in near-decade and in what could be her last collegiate season.

Last year’s winners, the South Carolina Gamecocks, are the favorites to do it again, but two recent defeats have made their title chances worse.

But the Texas Longhorns are on the move, led by their upset of LSU, which boosted them to No. 2 in the most recent AP and USA TODAY coaches’ polls. With just a month to go until the tournament, experts are sounding off on the Longhorns’ chances. Texas has three games remaining in the regular season, against unranked Georgia, Mississippi State, and Florida, before the SEC tournament. Bracketology now leans toward the Longhorns, and among the teams projected with Texas are Ohio State, TCU, Michigan, and Creighton.

To get a good placement, Texas will try to win the SEC tournament, getting an automatic bid and also possibly hosting a postseason game.

Well, the Texas Longhorns are certainly making a good case for themselves, and the rest, so they say, is in the hands of fate. One bad game and Schaefer’s squad sees an end.