What’s Texas women’s basketball’s message to the rest of its new conference ahead of this season?

Don’t mess.

The Longhorns might be in the SEC now, but that doesn’t mean that they won’t be right in the thick of the hunt for a conference title — or maybe even a national title, for that matter — throughout all the new road trips and surroundings they’ll see this winter.

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With multiple All-America-caliber players back in the mix and returning to Austin, Texas was just a game away last season from its first Final Four since 2003 and doesn’t plan on waiting around for its next trip to the national semifinals much longer. Tough nonconference showdowns will prepare the Longhorns well for what’s to come, too, and that will include when they go down to sunshine-filled Florida just after Thanksgiving for the Gulf Coast Showcase.

A women’s college basketball power is brewing in Austin, and as UT looks to make some history this year, check the Longhorns out on FloHoops next month before they potentially become darlings of March.

Here’s a look ahead at all you need to know about Texas women’s basketball ahead of both the 2024-25 season and the 2024 Gulf Coast Showcase — the latter of which will be streamed live and exclusively on FloCollege:

Texas WBB Last Season

1. 33-5 overall (14-4 Big 12 Conference)
2. Won Big 12 Tournament
3. Lost to NC State in NCAA Elite 8

Revitalized as an elite-level program under coach Vic Schaefer — an Austin native who took the Longhorns job in 2020 after leading Mississippi State to the Final Four twice in 2017 and 2018 — UT finished with its most wins in a season since it won the program’s only national championship in 1985-86 and won either the Big 12 regular season or tournament crown for the third consecutive season, taking the league tourney title en route to its third Elite 8 appearance in four years.

Ranked No. 4 in this year’s Associated Press preseason poll, reaching the Final Four for the first time in 22 years will be high on the list of goals for the Longhorns, but it will come with a twist this year.

The already-loaded Southeastern Conference now gets both Texas and its hated rival, Oklahoma, into the fold for the first time this winter, and both newcomers were projected by the media to finish fourth in its preseason SEC poll. And while the Big 12 was far from a cakewalk as it sent seven teams to the NCAA Tournament last season, SEC stalwarts South Carolina and LSU and Tennessee are all giants of the sport and among the bluest of the blue bloods, and they and the rest of the league doesn’t exactly plan to give UT and OU a warm welcome.

That being said, the Longhorns have the talent at their disposal this season to compete with absolutely anyone, up to and including the top-ranked, defending national champion Gamecocks. The key will be bringing it all together in March for a long-awaited run to the Final Four or further.

Texas WBB Returners

1. Madison Booker, F, Soph., Ridgeland, Miss.
2. Rori Harmon, G, Sr., Houston
3. Taylor Jones, F, Sr., Forney, Texas
4. Aaliyah Moore, F, Sr., Moore, Okla.
5. Shay Holle, G, Sr., Austin, Texas
6. Ndjakalenga Mwenentanda, G, Jr., Sioux Falls, S.D.
7. Sarah Graves, G, Jr., Keller, Texas
8. Jordana Codio, G, Jr., Winter Garden, Fla.
9. Abbie Boutilier, C, Soph., Flower Mound, Texas

When Harmon, a former Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year and All-Big 12 First Team selection, went down after 12 games following when she suffered a season-ending knee injury just after Christmas, UT could’ve packed it up last year and considered it to be a lost season without one of its top stars.

The Longhorns had other ideas.

Instead of feeling sorry for itself, Texas leaned heavily on its other talent surrounding Harmon — and Booker emerged into her own star and became one of the top players in America. The reigning Cheryl Miller Award winner, given to the country’s best small forward, Booker became the first freshman ever to win the Big 12 Player of the Year award and was a menace in conference play averaging 20.2 points, 5.4 rebounds and 5.2 assists per night as the Longhorns relied on her without Harmon.

Off-and-on injury troubles gave UT fits throughout last season as only three players suited up for all 38 games, with one of those players returning in Holle as the hometown hero was an All-Big 12 Honorable Mention selection a year ago. Add in the fact that all four of the Longhorns’ double-digit per game scorers in Booker, Harmon, Jones and Moore are all back in the fold, too, and not much production is going away from what was a record-setting 2023-24 season.

Mwenentanda returns as a spark plug who got in 35 games (averaging 10.6 minutes per night) off of the bench last year, whereas Codio and Graves had more sporadic appearances. Boutilier, despite missing all of last season due to injury, is an intriguing name for another reason; at 6-foot-9, she’s already one of the tallest women’s basketball players to ever live and will be an obvious force on the defensive end if she sees some extra playing time this year.

Texas WBB Transfers/Freshmen

1. Laila Phelia, G, Sr., Cincinnati (Michigan)
2. Kyla Oldacre, F, Jr., Mason, Ohio (Miami (Fla.))
3. Jordan Lee, G, Fr., Stockton, Calif.
4. Bryanna Preston, G, Fr., Jonesboro, Ga.
5. Justice Carlton, F, Fr., Katy, Texas

Shaylee Gonzales was the only Longhorn to start all 38 games last season, and her graduation meant that UT had a major hole to fill in the backcourt and needed to find an able pairing for Harmon fast.

Enter Phelia, who after three years with the Wolverines did more than enough to show that she’s capable of filling in Gonzales’s shoes in Austin.

An All-Big Ten Conference First Team selection last season after averaging 16.8 points, 3.6 rebounds, 2.0 assists and 1.2 steals per game, Phelia was named to the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award Watch List as she was recognized as one of the country’s best shooting guards for a Michigan team that won 20 games and made the NCAA Tournament, even after the departure of WNBA second-round draft pick Leigha Brown.

She’s one of two Power 4 conference transfers that will be making their debuts with the Longhorns this season, with Oldacre coming to Texas as an experienced 6-6 frontcourt depth piece with room to grow. Starting 21 games for the Hurricanes a year ago, Oldacre was most effective as a defensive specialist, breaking the program record for blocks in a game against Wake Forest with six as she also shot 57% from the field on 114 attempts, averaging 5.0 points per game.

Meanwhile, Texas’ freshman class was ranked No. 5 nationally by ESPN, Schaefer’s second top-five recruiting haul in his tenure at UT. Lee and Carlton are the marquee names in the class with both being top-15 recruits nationally and earning high school All-America accolades, but don’t sleep on top-50 recruit Preston, a rapid point guard who may be the floor general in waiting in Austin once Harmon’s time with the Longhorns is over.

X-Factor

1. Can Rori Harmon Shake Off Knee Injury?

Texas unquestionably had a fantastic year all things considered in 2023-24, but it’ll be left wondering if it could’ve gotten back to the Final Four if Harmon was running the show as the team’s primary ball handler and had gotten more time to formulate a dynamic duo with Booker.

Harmon will get the chance to do that this year, and there’s some extra good news for her going into this season, too.

The NCAA in August approved Texas’ hardship waiver filed on behalf of Harmon, making her junior season instead a medical redshirt campaign as she earned an extra year of eligibility in the meantime. And on social media last week, Harmon announced that she had been cleared by doctors to return to the court, seemingly giving her the green light to lead the Longhorns’ backcourt once again. 

If all goes according to plan the rest of the way, Harmon and Booker are going to make up a partnership that teams across the country are going to have problems stopping, no matter how they stack up against UT. Just ask UConn, as the duo combined for 47 points on the Huskies in an 80-68 win in early December, for evidence of that. 

A serious threat to win the Nancy Lieberman Award as the nation’s best point guard (especially as three-time reigning winner Caitlin Clark is out of college hoops), Harmon has sky-high potential to improve her already-impressive resume, and the first date of her redemption tour will be during the Longhorns’ regular-season opener Nov. 10 against Southeast Missouri State.

What To Know About Texas WBB At The Gulf Coast Showcase

Texas will open its Gulf Coast Showcase slate on Nov. 29 when the Longhorns face New Mexico State, with the tournament (to be held from Nov. 29-Dec. 1 at Hertz Arena in Estero, Florida) streamed live and exclusively on FloHoops. The Gulf Coast Showcase is part of FloHoops’ extended coverage of men’s and women’s college basketball all winter long, being the exclusive home of hoops across multiple NCAA Divisions I, II, and III conferences.

NCAA Women’s Basketball: 2024 Gulf Coast Showcase

Date: Nov. 29-Dec. 1

2024 Gulf Coast Showcase Teams 

• Boise St.
• Illinois St.
• West Virginia
• High Point
• Butler
• Santa Clara
• Texas
• New Mexico State

2024 Gulf Coast Showcase Schedule By Bracket

• Boise State vs Illinois State
• West Virginia vs High Point
• Butler vs Santa Clara
• Texas vs New Mexico State
• Gulf Coast Showcase Game 5
• Gulf Coast Showcase Game 6
• Gulf Coast Showcase Semifinal 1
• Gulf Coast Showcase Semifinal 2
• Gulf Coast Showcase Game 9
• Gulf Coast Showcase Game 10
• Gulf Coast Showcase Game 11
• Gulf Coast Showcase Championship

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