Locked On Women’s Basketball: Texas’s Vic Schaefer joins the show, details Madison Booker’s greatness

Schaefer detailed how the team prepares players physically and mentally for difficult stretches like this that inevitably occur throughout the season:

“It’s been my experience you just take them one game at a time,” Vic Schaefer said. “Each opponent deserves their respect, whether they’re ranked or not in this league. And we just try to put one foot in front of the other. We try to get exponentially, one percentage point better each day and and just kind of embrace the process. I’m a creature of habit. We don’t vary very much practice to practice day to day. Our off day in this league is on Monday. Every Tuesday is pretty much the same, every Wednesday is pretty much the same, games are on Thursday and Sunday. Our Fridays and Saturdays, I don’t deviate much.”

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“Every now and then, if I feel like we might be getting a little tired, or maybe we had some kids play a lot of minutes the night before, I might make some adjustments. Because I do think you have to be able to adjust. [I] didn’t used to always think that, but I’m very in tune with my student athletes and players, and I listen to them, I ask them how they’re feeling and all that. So I just think there’s a method to the madness. I think there’s an equation for success. … I have practice plans here on my desk from two, three, four, years [ago]. I go back and look and see what I did on February 12, last year, the year before, the year before, and that’s pretty much what we do.”

Then, Megdal asked Schaefer whether this Texas team was the best offensively of those he had coached in his many years as a head coach. Schaefer replied:

“[This is] certainly one of the best shooting teams I’ve had,” he said. “And you sit there and go, ‘well, coach, how’s that possible? … Don’t you make three threes a game?’ To me, that has nothing to do with whether you shoot the ball well or not. And we have shooting drills that we do every day, and this team really sets a different bar as far as the goal of makes and things like that. So, from that perspective, this team does shoot the ball extremely well. And do we shoot the three as good as I’d like? I mean, some nights, we made nine against Vanderbilt and and the other night, we didn’t make a single one against South Carolina. We didn’t take, like, three or four. So each night’s different. Each night requires something different and again, it’s how teams play us and so, but I have a lot of confidence in our ability to shoot the ball, I feel like I got some great shooters on my team. It’s just that we have a philosophy and on how we want to do certain things, and some nights it works, and sometimes … we take what they give us.”

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Tune in to hear more from Vic Schaefer about the Longhorns’ success, including how players like Madison Booker and Rori Harmon have made a difference. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about the WNBA, women’s college basketball, basketball history and much more!