Texas Longhorns notebook: Booker prepares to play former teammate, Carlton scores 30

Texas brought home its first trophy after three victories in three days in the Gulf Coast Showcase in Florida. It also secured its first ranked win of the season against then-No. 12 West Virginia in the tournament’s championship game on Sunday.

The Longhorns face No. 10 Notre Dame in the SEC/ACC Challenge on Thursday before their SEC debut against Oklahoma on Jan. 2. Thursday’s matchup will count extra with the reunion of two friends who are usually on the same team.

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Booker and Hidalgo face off

Texas forward Madison Booker and Notre Dame guard Hannah Hidalgo met two years ago on the United States Under-17 team. Last year, the duo became two of the most talked-about players in college basketball as star freshmen alongside USC’s JuJu Watkins.

Booker told reporters on Wednesday that she expected Hidalgo’s popularity to blow up, but having the spotlight on herself was a surprise. The pair leaned on each other as they went through the ups and downs of being in the spotlight.

“[She’s] a player in the same shoes as I was my freshman year, same age and everything. [We’ve] been cool for a minute,” Booker said. “It was great. It helped me get through the season.”

The two are used to playing alongside one another for Team USA, and Thursday’s game will be a rare occasion where they are playing against each other. But Texas and Notre Dame each have not just those stars, but elite duos.

Booker and Texas guard Rori Harmon, though limited in playing together last year after Harmon tore her ACL, are back in high gear. For the Fighting Irish, Hidalgo teams up with All-ACC guard Olivia Miles.

The last time Booker and Hidalgo faced each other, in an AAU game, the Notre Dame guard got the win.

“I have to get this to get back,” Booker said. “I’m looking to win in Notre Dame.”

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Related reading: Texas signs top-five class of 2025 recruit

Carlton is the nation’s freshman of the week

Ahead of that big game, freshman forward Justice Carlton dropped some of her best performances as a Longhorn. That earned her the United States Basketball Writers Association’s National Freshman of the Week award.

The former McDonald’s All-American shone on both ends of the court at the Gulf Coast Showcase. She scored 30 points against Butler on Saturday, then had 10 points, six rebounds and and the game-clinching steal against West Virginia on Sunday.

“She’s patient,” Booker said about her teammate. “She’s a bucket; nobody can stop her. She’s a big body, she’s a big guard and she really reads angles very well. This is just the start.”

Carlton comes from a family of ballers. Her mom Kacy played at Baylor and averaged 12.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.2 blocks in 118 games for the Bears. Kacy went on to play in the WNBA and overseas and later coached her daughter as an assistant at Seven Lakes High School.

“My mom does say she thinks I’m better than her at this age,” Carlton told reporters. “She thinks I’m way ahead. She makes jokes all the time about how she was in college and she, sarcastically, weighed 90 pounds. She just kind of came in and used her footwork. So she said that I’m really aggressive and that I have a solid frame.”

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Her mom and Booker weren’t the only two to highlight Carlton’s achievements in such a short period of time as a college player. Texas head coach Vic Schaefer saw the player he spent years recruiting in those games, and he praised her quality offensively and defensively.

“She had a confidence and an air about it, a presence on the floor those last two games,” Schaefer told reporters on Wednesday. “That’s the life of a freshman. One minute you’re ready to … quit, and the next minute you’re having two really good games back-to-back, and you’re the National Freshman of the Week and you’re SEC Freshman of the Week. The challenge is developing that consistency.”

But now, Carlton’s standard has raised. When asked whether Schaefer is now expecting 30 points from her every night, the answer was yes, he is.

“He congratulated me,” Carlton said. “But he was like, ‘Finally. Where has this kid been?'”