No. 5 Texas has jumped eight spots in the AP Women’s College Basketball Poll since the start of the season, largely because the Longhorns have been completely overwhelming at home.
Since absorbing a 73-51 loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament to Louisville in Austin last March, the Longhorns have gone 7-0 at Moody Center, winning by an average margin of 36.4 points. That includes an 80-68 win on Dec. 3 over No. 17 UConn, the most impressive victory ever in Texas’ 10-0 nonconference start.
The Longhorns also picked up tournament wins over Arizona State, High Point and South Florida from November’s Paradise Jam tour to the U.S. Virgin Islands, but Wednesday night’s trip to the desert will be a test of consistency early in the season.
Arizona has soared to historic heights in recent years, three seasons ago downing UConn in the Final Four and coming within two points of winning the national title over Stanford, thanks to the heroics of eventual No. 3 WNBA draft pick Ari McDonald.
“They’ve done a great job of continuing to play their style of play. They’re playing really hard. They’re recruiting well,” Texas head coach Vic Schaefer said Monday of the Wildcats program. “And those are all things you have to continue to do if you want to Maintain any kind of success.”
Texas saw its former star Charlie Collier go No. 1 to Dallas in the same draft in 2021. However, the Longhorns welcome the opportunity to experience some of the success that head coach Adia Barnes and Arizona have become accustomed to in recent years.
Only once in program history have the Longhorns gone as deep in a March as Arizona has in 2020-21, and that magical season comes in 1985-86, when Texas won its only national championship.
Texas had at least one NCAA Tournament win in each of Shafer’s three full seasons at Forty Acres, winning more than 76% of its games under former Mississippi State coach Sam Houston.
The Longhorns have yet to reach the Final Four under Schaefer, something he and the Bulldogs accomplished twice during his eight years leading the program.
Arizona, which like the Longhorns was eliminated in the second round of the last NCAA Tournament, is off to a 7-2 start despite losing two of its past four games.
While this year’s group may not appear to contain a player with the star power of, say, McDonald, whose 20.6 points per game during the 2020-21 season was nearly double any other Wildcat player, Arizona does deploy an offensive attack Balanced.
Kailyn Gilbert, Esmere Martinez and Maya Nnaji are each providing more than 10 points per game, while Bria Cunningham, a 6-4 redshirt freshman forward, is contributing 8.1 points, 5.9 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game, an average that ranks All of them are in the top six on the list. .
The Wildcats’ defense has been consistent, only conceding more than 70 points once this season. However, Arizona has remained under 55 points in losses to Ole Miss (56-47) and No. 23 UNLV (72-53) over the past three and a half weeks.
Meanwhile, Texas, off to its best 10-game start since 2015, is getting 7.4 assists per game from Rory Harmon.
Senior forward Taylor Jones is averaging 16.2 points per night, the highest average per game by a Longhorn since Collier scored 19 points per game for a team that fell in the Elite Eight to South Carolina in 2021.
The Longhorns have perhaps their best chance in a long time to reach the same tournament heights, if not higher.
Texas finds itself in the top five in the AP for the second straight season, something the Longhorns have accomplished only three times (2014-15, 2015-16 and 2003-04, 2004-05) since their dominant run in the 1980s.
“What I’m seeing across the country is that the teams that are able to sustain that, don’t take that for granted,” Schaefer said. “And they are not satisfied.”
The Texans’ Wednesday night road trip to Tucson is one of only two games on the schedule over the next two weeks. The Longhorns also head to Edinburg on Dec. 20 to take on Texas-Rio Grande Valley.
After that, it’s back to Austin as the Longhorns host Jackson State on Dec. 27 before starting Big 12 action against three-time national champion Baylor on Dec. 30.
Find more Longhorns coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
The No. 5 Texas Longhorns are gearing up for their first major challenge on the road as they get set to take on Arizona. After a strong start to the season, the Longhorns are prepared to face a tough opponent in a hostile environment. With their eyes set on a dominant performance, the Longhorns will look to prove themselves on the road and continue their climb up the rankings. This matchup against Arizona will be a true test of their skills and a chance for them to show their resilience away from home.