Vic Schaefer knew Tennessee’s offensive output so well, he sounded like an auctioneer.

“91, 86, 87, 93, 86,” Schaefer said, rattling off the Lady Vols’ recent offensive totals

Then the Texas coach drilled down to their starters’ conference scoring averages. “19, 17, 14, 10 1/2 and 10.”

“Made 33 threes in a game one night,” Schaefer said, downright exasperated. “That’s pretty phenomenal when you think about that, y’all. Thirty-three threes in a game. That’s crazy.”

For the record, it was 30 made 3-pointers against North Carolina Central in mid-December, but who’s counting?

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Madison Booker proves once again that when she’s cooking the Longhorns are hard to stop in smashing Terps

Texas women’s coach Vic Schaefer was so unnerved by his team’s 17-point loss at No. 2 South Carolina, he simply didn’t know what to think. The ensuing 17-point win over Auburn didn’t ease his mind, either. “I don’t know how good we are right now,” Schaefer said last Friday. “I really wish we’d be more […]

The Longhorns and Lady Vols were once the most dominant forces in women’s college basketball. They used to play annually as Jody Conradt and the late Pat Summitt watched the game grow exponentially.

The two programs haven’t met since 2021, but now it’ll be a regular feature of the SEC schedule. Tennessee holds the all-time edge with a 26-16 record in a series that dates back to 1978.

Thursday’s matchup finds both teams in familiar positions. No. 7 Texas (18-2, 4-1 SEC) will lean on its defense while No. 17 Tennessee (15-3, 3-3) wants to bury you with an offensive avalanche.

“These are some great programs, Texas and Tennessee. Winning programs,” Longhorns guard Rori Harmon said. “Obviously, we’re the real UT.”

Harmon also had high praise for Tennessee coach Kim Caldwell, who has reenergized the brand. “I love watching her press conferences, because I feel like she says a lot of good stuff,” Harmon said. “It’s just gonna be the battle of the oranges, I guess. It’s gonna be a knock-down, drag-out, and those are the games we like.”

When Schaefer wasn’t praising Tennessee’s offense, he was reminiscing about Summitt, her staff and how the Lady Vols shaped him as a young assistant.

Schaefer spoke in glowing terms about former Tennessee assistant Al Brown. When Schaefer was a young coach at Arkansas, he’d watch Brown come to the SEC tournament with manilla folders and scout every team in the league. Schaefer liked that approach so much, he copied it as an assistant during his time at Texas A&M — until the Big 12 told him to stop.

Schaefer said when Summitt’s team “got off the bus, they looked like a national champion. They look like an SEC champion.”

“I remember going to Mississippi State and telling my staff, hey we don’t look like an SEC team right now,” Schaefer said. “Getting off the bus, first thing we’ve got to do is recruit SEC bodies, then we’ll coach them to be SEC champions. And that’s what we did.”

Schaefer went on a stemwinder about one night Arkansas faced Tennessee — “this was in their heyday — and his team was up 38-29 at half. The Arkansas coaches were standing in the hallway and “it sounded like a doggone party” in their locker room.

Schaefer said he turned to head coach Gary Blair and said, “You know what’s coming. Their locker room didn’t sound like that one, and they’re getting the riot act read to them. I said we better be ready.

“We opened up the second half, and Tennessee went on a 32-4 run and we couldn’t even get the ball into our offense,” Schaefer recalled. “They were all over us like stink on you-know-what. But that’s her. That’s her teams, and that’s the expectation. That’s her demanding her team to be elite.”

“I wish I had a fun story, but I just don’t have one. When you played her teams, that usually didn’t end very fun.”