Bohls: Texas women's hoops team shows off depth, dominance in season opener

After a night in which his Texas women’s basketball team missed more free throws than it made, one smart-aleck reporter couldn’t resist and asked head coach Vic Schaefer who the free throw coach was.

Schaefer, not immune to sarcasm, deadpanned, “I think we’re going to have to have a conversation with him.”

The fourth-year Longhorns head coach might have to look in the mirror to do so, but he could afford to smirk a little despite a really bad 10-for-23 stat line from the charity stripe.

After all, the conversation was largely a pleasant one because he had plenty of nice things to talk about Wednesday night.

Pretty much everything besides free throws went according to plan for 13th-ranked Texas in its 80-35 romp over overmatched Southern University in its 2023 season opener at Moody Center.

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Just pick a category out of a hat. Any category.

Second-chance points, for example.

The Longhorns had 24 of those. The Lady Jaguars? None. A big fat zero. Hey, the visitors from the SWAC were lucky to get any first-chance points.

Points off turnovers.

Same story. Texas outscored Southern 30-3 in that department.

How about assists?

The hosts had 23 on 32 makes. That’s outrageously good. Southern had three dimes.

Suffocating defense.

You can check that box as well. In the four quarters, Southern was held to seven, eight, eight and 12 points. And shot just 29%.

Just go down the list, and Texas dominated every single one of them. Except free throws. Southern sank five of 11 of those.

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“I was pleased with our team tonight,” said Schaefer, who’s hardly ever totally pleased, given his rigid standards. “We were being very intentional about trying to defend there for 40 minutes. We played really hard on that end.”

What else is new? That’s in Schaefer teams’ DNA.

Texas totally dominated from start to finish and whipped by 45 points a Southern team that lost by 32 to Baylor up the road in Waco.

Asked if they were trying to send a message and beat the Lady Jaguars by a more lopsided margin than the Bears did, team leader Rori Harmon scoffed and said, “That really wasn’t the focus. We understand what we have to do as a team and see what we need to do better.”

Give Schaefer an assist on that front, too. He coaches ’em up on, well, coach speak, too.

What the announced crowd of 5,106 learned was that this season they’ll watch a hustling team that can go inside — hello, 6-foot-4 posts Taylor Jones and Khadija Faye — and outside with some additional sharpshooting this year from freshmen Gisella Maul and Madison Booker.

Texas spent much of the second half feeding the ball to Jones, who is coming off a season with shoulder problems and who scored 19 points in 22 minutes on eight buckets in 12 attempts. Faye chipped in six points, five boards and a pair of blocks.

“That’s our two-headed monster,” Schaefer said. “Ten for 16 from the five (position). We’ll take that every night. Both bring something to the table. Taylor and Hadi had good back-to-back games inside. We’ve just got to toughen up a little bit.”

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From the perimeter is a whole ’nother thing. Texas’ shooting is not always pretty. In fact, it can be downright hard on the eyes at times, but Maul and Booker may come to the rescue this season.

Maul, a rookie guard from Cedar Park who is recovering from knee surgery, drained three of her five shots from deep. Booker hit only one from top of the key but flashed in other areas and should be a huge complement to Harmon as a ball handler.

Schaefer loved Maul’s contributions.

“When it comes off her hand, it’s a beautiful shot,” he said of Maul’s shooting. “It has a great rotation. If you had to pick teams for H-O-R-S-E and had to shoot threes, she might be the first pick. I asked her, ‘It looks like a big trash can, doesn’t it?’ She said yes, it does, but she let the game come to her.”

Texas went 11-deep on Wednesday, but the battle for minutes figures to only get more competitive, once power forwards Aaliyah Moore (knee) and DeYona Gaston (ankle) recover from their injuries and bolster the team’s frontcourt strength.

Without Gaston, 6-4 sophomore forward Amina Muhammad stepped into the starting lineup for the first time and produced an impressive double-double in the first half before settling for 14 points and 14 rebounds.

“I tried to get more comfortable scoring and not be so passive,” Muhammad said. “I didn’t want to make any turnovers.”

She made just one.

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The news got even better this week when Schaefer learned that Moore’s NCAA appeal to regain last year’s season was granted for an extra year of eligibility after her season-ending knee injury in the ninth game.

That’s a bonus for Schaefer, who also couldn’t stop bragging about the three-member recruiting class that’s currently ranked No. 1 in the nation.

“Absolutely,” Schaefer said about Moore’s news. “We’ve got a chance.”

They’ve got more than a chance. The Longhorns are the preseason favorites to repeat as Big 12 champions.

Harmon, who flirted with a triple-double Wednesday with eight points, nine assists and seven rebounds (and four steals), is the league’s preseason player of the year, and Booker the freshman of the year.

This is a hungry team, still ticked off by its second-round elimination at home by Louisville in last year’s NCAA Tournament. Coming on the heels of back-to-back Elite Eight showings, last season’s quick exit didn’t sit well with the team that returns almost 90% of its scoring and rebounding.

But returns 100% of its want-to.

“If you’re flat on opening night, you may be concerned about the next 29 or 32,” Schaefer said. “But we’ve got a great group.”

Now it just needs to fix that free throw problem.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas women's basketball team has lots to talk about in blowout