Can we get a yeehaw, y’all? Notre Dame women’s basketball will face Texas for just the third time ever and the first since 1997 in the 2024-25 ACC/SEC Challenge, ESPN announced Wednesday. The matchup will take place at Purcell Pavilion in South Bend on Thursday, Dec. 5.
Notre Dame and Texas split the only two previous all-time meetings. The Longhorns beat the Irish 84-59 in Austin just a few months after winning their first national championship. The Irish got the Longhorns back in 1997 with an 86-83 win in Austin.
Vic Schaefer is going into his fifth season as the head coach of the Longhorns. He took them to the Elite Eight in three of his first four years, including this past March. Texas lost to NC State with a berth in the Final Four on the line. It would have been the Horns’ first trip to the national semifinals since 2003 and fourth in program history.
Schaefer had head coaching stops at Sam Houston State from 1990 to 1997 and at Mississippi State from 2012 to 2020. He helped Texas A&M win a national championship in 2011 in between those two tenures as an assistant on Gary Blair‘s staff.
Mississippi State became a national powerhouse in the Schaefer era. He took the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championship games in 2017 and 2018. MSU lost the first of those games to South Carolina and the second to Notre Dame on Arike Ogunbowale‘s buzzer beater.
Schaefer won 200 of his first 256 games at Mississippi State. That made him the second-fastest coach to get to that milestone. Georgia’s Andy Landers got there in 251 games. It took Tennessee legend Pat Summit 259 games to notch 200 victories, for reference.
It’s a talented Texas team Schaefer is at the helm of. Madison Booker was named the Big 12 Player of the Year, making her the first freshman to ever receive that honor. She was also an Associated Press Second Team All-American. The 6-1 forward who took over point guard duties after Rori Harmon‘s knee injury averaged 17.2 points, 5.1 assists and 5.0 rebounds rebounds per game.
Notre Dame will counter with might be an even more loaded lineup led by guards Hannah Hidalgo and Olivia Miles. Fighting Irish head coach Niele Ivey has plenty of front-court players to throw at Booker, too, in Maddy Westbeld, Cassandre Prosper, Liatu King and Liza Karlen.
Both teams brought in top-10 freshmen. Notre Dame signed 6-4 center Kate Koval, the No. 5 player in the class according to ESPN, and Texas landed 6-0 guard Jordan Lee, the No. 9 player in the class. Koval was Notre Dame’s only signee. Texas also signed 6-2 forward Justice Carlton, the No. 12 player in the class and 5-9 point guard Bryanna Preston, the No. 38 player in the class.
Texas and Notre Dame are two deep squads with serious preseason Final Four aspirations. Their first meeting in 27 years should be a good one.
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