Booker powers No. 1 Texas as Big 12 champs chase national title
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The University of Texas Longhorns enter the Women’s March Madness Tournament as a No. 1 seed for the first time since 2004.
The Longhorns secured their place as a top seed in the tournament by capturing the Big 12 title with a 70-53 win over Iowa State in the final.
Second-team All American Madison Booker was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Big 12 tournament as the freshman continues to impress in leading the Longhorns attack.
The first-year forward is averaging 16.9 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.9 assists this season.
Booker was awarded Big 12 Co-Player of the Year, the first freshman in history to capture the award.
She shared the award with Oklahoma’s Skylar Vann.
The 18-year-old stepped into the void that was created when star guard Rori Harmon suffered a season-ending ACL injury in December and never looked back on the way to her breakout campaign.
Head coach Vic Schaefer, in his fourth year in charge, leads the Longhorns into the tournament, looking to improve on last year’s second-round exit and go deep into March Madness.
Schaefer expects his team to rise to the challenge.
"We've just got a lot of players playing at a really, really high level, and whether they'll be at this level with Rori still on the team, we won't know that," Schaefer told the media. "What I do know is that they have absolutely elevated their game to another level because of what happened, and it had to happen that way for us to be where we are today."
Aaliyah Moore is another player that will be counted on in the Longhorns’ offence.
The junior forward averaged 10.9 points and 5.8 rebounds during the season and 15.7 points and 8.3 rebounds over the three games of the tournament on her way to being named to the all tournament team.
By virtue of being named a No. 1 seed, Texas will host in the first and second rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
They open against the No. 16 Drexel Dragons and if they are successful, they will meet the winner of the matchup between No. 8 Alabama and No. 9 Florida State.
The Longhorns enter the tournament having won 12 of their last 13 games overall.
ROAD TO THE FINAL FOUR:
Barring upsets, these are the teams Texas will face on their way to the Final Four:
No. 16 Drexel
No. 8 Alabama
No. 4 Gonzaga
No. 2 Stanford