Vic Schaefer didn’t hold back when his Texas Longhorns suffered an 86-70 loss to Vanderbilt. He called the team soft and said that his players had shown no heart during the game. The team responded with a tough 65-63 win over a Tennessee team that had to endure a similar outburst from head coach Kim Caldwell after a 93-50 loss to South Carolina. This wasn’t the first time Schaefer called out one of his teams and got a strong response.
After the game against Tennessee, Schaefer told the media, “This isn’t the first time that I’ve challenged a team. I’ve had a team at Mississippi State I challenged about this time of year after we had a stinker at home against Kentucky, and they went on a run and made it to the Final Four and played for the national championship. I’m too far down the road to change, and holding kids accountable, myself accountable, I owe it to them to do that.”
Following in the footsteps of that Mississippi State team would be a huge success for Texas, especially after the team already made it to the Final Four last year and wants to build on that success.
Vic Schaefer led Mississippi State to two national finals
Schaefer coached the Mississippi State Bulldogs for eight seasons between 2012 and 2020. Over that time, the team made the NCAA Tournament five times and played for a championship twice in the 2016-17 and 2017-18 seasons.
The Bulldogs only lost to Kentucky in February during the 2016-17 season. Kentucky secured a 78-75 win in overtime. Mississippi State also lost its next home game, falling to Tennessee 82-64, but still went on a deep tournament run, beating Troy, DePaul, Washington, Baylor, and UConn on its way to a date with South Carolina in the final game.
Beating UConn was a massive accomplishment. The Huskies came into the Final Four with a seemingly endless win streak and four consecutive national championships on their resume. Mississippi State beat them by two points in overtime after a clutch shot from Morgan William.
The Bulldogs lost the championship game to a South Carolina team led by A’ja Wilson and Allisha Gray.
A year later, the Bulldogs returned to the championship game but lost to Notre Dame and its collection of future WNBA players—Arike Ogunbowale, Marina Mabrey, Jessica Shepard, Jackie Young, and Kathryn all played in the WNBA this past season and still have long careers ahead of them.