AUSTIN, Texas — Texas women’s basketball coach Vic Schaefer was upset late Saturday night – after a 105-61 win over 16th-seeded William & Mary – to learn the Longhorns would have a short turnaround with a 1 pm CT second-round game time on Monday against eighth-seeded Illinois.
“Make it make sense,” Schaefer said of the scheduling.
Illinois coach Shauna Green was stunned by the game time, too.
“I think I got the text from our ops person last night at like 1:00 in the morning, and she’s like, ‘We’re playing at 1:00 [pm CT on Monday],'” Green said. “I was shocked. I thought for sure it would be a 6:15 pm or 7:00 pm game. I think if I was Vic, I would not be happy with it. I’m sure he’s not happy with it, because, at home, you want to play later, so your place is full, right?”
But Schaefer was even more upset with how his team started the William & Mary game defensively, allowing the Tribe to hit 58.3% of their shots (7-of-12) in a 23-18 first quarter.
“I think we had some rust to knock off,” Schaefer said of having a 13-day layoff before facing William & Mary. “We knocked some [rust] off on offense and still got some on defense. So, hopefully, we can continue to work and get better. We’d better because we’re going to play a really good Illinois team.”
When the top-seeded Longhorns take the floor at Moody Center against the Illini on Monday afternoon, it’ll be a clash of depth vs. determination.
The Longhorns (32-3) have depth at every position and have 11 players averaging double-digit minutes per game.
Racked by injuries this season, Illinois (22-9) played only six players in a 66-57 Round of 64 victory over ninth-seeded Creighton on Saturday.
Those six Illini players are locked in from a chemistry standpoint – led by senior guards Genesis Bryant (15.2 points, 4.0 assists, 3.5 rebounds per game) and Adalia McKenzie (13.5 ppg, 4.9 rpg, 3.4 apg) and senior 6-foot-2 forward Kendall Bostic (15.8 ppg, 11.3 rpg, 1.0 bpg).
“Our players, their resiliency, the toughness,” said Shauna Green, whose had eight players miss significant time due to injury. “I said, when you go through hard times and tough times, you either can pull apart or you get tighter. This group is just such a special group. We just continued to get stronger, more together, more connected, and just continued to really just show the toughness, the resiliency.”
Schaefer said, “When you watch film on them, they’ve got some really special guards [in Genesis Bryant and Adalia McKenzie]. Obviously, [Kendall] Bostic inside is very special.”
Among Illinois’ wounded is 6-foot-7 Baylor transfer Lety Vasconcelos, who suffered a season-ending knee injury over the summer. But Illinois won at then-No. 14 Maryland, 66-65, on Feb. 2 and hung around in losses at then-No. 3 UCLA (55-70) on Feb. 20 and at then-No. 4 USC (66-76) on Feb. 23. Facing Texas’ sophomore All-American Madison Booker after facing UCLA’s Lauren Betts and USC’s JuJu Watkins is another monumental challenge her team will have to get up for, Green said.
“I watched our players getting off the bus, and was like, ‘She’s not playing and she’s not playing and she’s not playing,'” Green said. “But there’s no pressure on us. There’s no pressure at all. Everyone thinks Texas is going to beat our butts. That’s fine. Texas is really, really good.”
Texas will have a huge size advantage down low with 6-foot-4 Taylor Jones and 6-foot-6 Kyla Oldacre.
“I recruited Kyla when I was at Dayton,” Green said. “That feels like 20 years ago. Isn’t she out of eligibility?”
Schaefer even hinted at playing Jones and Oldacre together – something he hasn’t shown this season.
“Obviously, I like our depth both at guard and post, at the five, and I think the versatility of our lineups can create some issues for people,” Schaefer said. “We’ll continue to play Taylor [Jones] and Kyla [Oldacre], and you never know when you’ll see them together.”
