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Vic Schaefer is coaching against ghosts with Texas chasing an elusive championship
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- Vic Schaefer is coaching against ghosts with Texas chasing an elusive championship
AUSTIN, TX — Vic Schaefer was worried. So two hours before his Texas team was set to tip off its second-round NCAA Tournament game against Oregon on March 22, he pulled the Longhorns into the practice gym and ran through a new defensive strategy.
"My Bible study today was run toward things that you're worried about or you're concerned about. And I was concerned about pick-and-roll defense today," Schaefer said. "But I thought we ran to it today."
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Texas crushed Oregon, 100-58 . The Longhorns snatched 13 steals and scored 23 points off turnovers. After the Ducks shot 9-of-11 from the field in the first quarter, the Longhorns held them to a combined 12 field goals on 30% shooting over the next three quarters.
The reason Schaefer was so concerned about pick-and-roll defense, he later told USA TODAY, was because of a 2019 game against the Ducks when he was the head coach at Mississippi State.
Schaefer's Bulldogs were coming off consecutive national runner-up finishes in 2017 and 2018 and seemed primed to return to the championship game in 2019 when they earned a No. 1 seed in NCAA Tournament. But Mississippi State lost by four points in an Elite Eight game, played in Portland, to second-seeded Oregon and point guard Sabrina Ionescu .
"That was my best team," Schaefer said. "That team was better than the two previous teams that played in the national championship game. If we'd have beat them, we'd have won the national championship, no question. But we got unlucky, we got sent to Oregon, we had to play in front of 13,000 Ducks and we got beat 88-84 because we couldn't guard the pick-and-roll. Ionescu crushed me with pick-and-roll."
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Schaefer chasing elusive national title with fifth Sweet 16 with Longhorns
Schaefer frequently talks about coaching against "ghosts," referring to hypothetical situations that could incapacitate his teams. But the past is also a stubborn poltergeist with disturbances that can be harder to shake.
In his sixth season at Texas, Schaefer is a semifinalist for Naismith Coach of the Year after he guided the Longhorns to the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship title in their debut season in the conference and a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season. Texas went to the Final Four in 2025 and on Sunday booked its ticket to the Sweet 16 for the fifth time under Schaefer.
Texas Longhorns head coach Vic Schaefer cuts down the net Sunday, March 8, 2026, after the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament Championship game against the South Carolina Gamecocks at Bon Secours Wellness Arena in Greenville, South Carolina. Texas won 78-61.
At Texas and Mississippi State, Schaefer has a combined career record of 398-101. He is one of two active coaches to take two different programs to the Final Four, the other being Kim Mulkey (LSU and Baylor).
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Through Schaefer's illustrious 21-season career as a head coach, which also includes seven seasons at Sam Houston State, one accomplishment has eluded him: Winning a national championship.
"You get evaluated more on this time of year as a coach than any other time during the season," Schaefer said. "You can win the championship, the conference championship, the tournament championship, but this is the time of year when you got to earn your keep. With this team, how special they are, they're good enough. I keep telling 'em, they're good enough."
Schaefer has the requisite experience to say that. He was an assistant on legendary coach Gary Blair's Texas A&M staff when the Aggies won the national title in 2011. That's where Schaefer learned many tricks of the trade that he still employs and are part of what makes him, him.
Consistency, evolution and 'generational talent' spur Texas basketball
Schaefer is a fan of consistency. When he finds something that works, he sticks with it. His teams all deploy the same suffocating style of pressure defense. His season-long practice plans rarely deviate year to year; practices in February 2026 look very similar to practices in February 2025 and February 2024, and so on.
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That doesn't mean it's all cut-and-paste, said Texas associate head coach Elena Lovato , who spent four seasons on Schaefer's staff at Mississippi State.
"I think he's evolved a lot as an offensive coach," Lovato said. "At Mississippi State, we were primarily dribble drive. We'd have a few sets here and there to get us into some high-low stuff. I think here, we've really evolved and grown our playbook. And we have better players, you know, like we have five stars, so we're utilizing their skill sets and I think (Schaefer) has done a really good job of making it really hard for people to guard us."
Schaefer is also a fan of backup plans and being overprepared. He'll install a secondary defense hours before a game, just in case. During games he keeps two play cards in his pocket; the smaller of the two has 50 different plays on it.
Many of the plays are for Texas junior sensation Madison Booker , whom Schaefer called a "generational talent" after she dropped 40 points on Oregon in the Longhorns' second-round victory.
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"I think Coach Schaefer has really just pushed me into taking just a bigger role, just being aggressive on the offensive end, finding my shot, hunting my shot," Booker said after the game. "That's all he says in practice is hunting my shot. I think my coach did a great job just drawing up plays and putting me in the right position just to score the ball easily."
In her five seasons at Texas, senior point guard Rori Harmon has become increasingly convinced that she and Schaefer are cut from the same cloth. They're so connected on the court that Lovato calls Harmon "a mini Vic."
"I think when it comes to the game of basketball, it's one of those things where you hate losing more than you love winning, and I think that's what we share a lot," Harmon said. "A lot of some phrases or words he would say while he recruited me or throughout my whole career here, it matches what I think when it comes to being competitive, being passionate, honoring the game, being disciplined, all that stuff. It truly does match me, and I think that's why it works so well."
Not just generational talent: generations of Schaefers fixed on a title
Harmon, Booker and their Longhorns teammates are well-versed in Schaefer's history. Blair Schaefer , Vic's daughter and former point guard on his 2014-2018 Mississippi State teams, is now a Texas assistant coach. Another Texas assistant coach, Sydney Carter , was a standout player for Schaefer at Texas A&M.
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The Longhorns are used to watching clips of plays that Schaefer ran at his previous stops and hearing tales about his former teams – whatever he thinks can help them improve.
"I just feel like the lesson that we kind of got from his stories and his words were just basically like it's one game at a time, that preparation is key right now," Booker said. "That's why our practices right now are very crucial to how we play in this tournament and how we play throughout really the whole season, and how crucial it is just for this moment because it's basically like a win-or-go-home game. Just kind of be present where your feet are, don't get too far ahead."
Staying in the present is sometimes easier said than done.
Every team is different, Schaefer contends. And winning a national title takes luck, not just talent. But standing outside the Longhorns' locker room after his team throttled Oregon and with another Sweet 16 on the horizon, Schaefer couldn't help but think that this year could be the year.
Texas Longhorns head coach Vic Schaefer embraces Texas guard Rori Harmon (3) during the second half at Dickies Arena on Dec. 14, 2025, in Fort Worth, Texas.
With Sunday's win, Texas improved its record to 33-3 in a season that began by inserting three new players into the starting lineup, two of them sophomores. Three players – Booker, sophomore guard Jordan Lee and senior center Kyla Oldacre – average double-figure scoring. The Longhorns' center duo of Breya Cunningham and Oldacre dominate the interior, Booker is virtually unstoppable from anywhere on the court, and Harmon sets the tone on defense.
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"This team, offensively, when they go out there and make shots, when you've got a difference-maker player like Madison Booker and they create their own shot, and then we've got the two-headed monster inside – they may not score a lot, but man they take up a lot of room down there," Schaefer said. "It just makes for a really special team."
Lovato has that same feeling.
"I won't be surprised if it happens because I know how much work goes in behind the scenes from a player perspective, from a staff perspective, from Coach Schaefer losing sleep, sleeping in the office," she said. "I think all of those things, we'd just kind of finally be rewarded for all the fruits of our labor."
Texas' lone women's basketball national championship was in 1986. Forty years later, Schaefer is attempting to deliver a second. The Longhorns know how much a championship would mean for the program and for their head coach.
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"I think he wants it, too," Harmon said. "To get one while we're both here would mean a lot, because I have been here for a really long time and I've witnessed the growth of every team, every year that he's been here from the start. So I think doing it for him is another reason why we go so hard."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why Vic Schaefer thinks his Texas Longhorns can win the national title
