After a February loss cracked everything open, Booker and the Longhorns haven’t stopped winning since.
After a February loss that exposed the Texas Longhorns at their most flat, head coach Vic Schaefer decided to say something. His public challenge rattled the locker room, forced some uncomfortable conversations, and ignited a run that has carried the No. 3-seeded Longhorns into the 2026 Women’s NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 on ten straight wins and an SEC championship.
Junior forward Madison Booker was at the center of all of it.
The reset that started everything
Texas fell 86-70 to Vanderbilt in February, a loss with few flattering angles. Schaefer addressed the team publicly, and Booker described what followed as a necessary recalibration. Senior point guard Rori Harmon stepped forward and held her teammates to a higher standard. The Longhorns responded by winning ten in a row, claiming the SEC championship over South Carolina, and sweeping through the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament.
For Booker, the turnaround felt like the team finally getting honest about what it wanted. She has been one of the driving forces since. In the second-round win over No. 8 Oregon, she posted a career-high 40 points along with eight rebounds and five assists, one of the most complete individual performances of the tournament’s opening weekend.
Madison Booker and the weight of almost winning
Booker has been close before. She reached the Elite Eight as a freshman and the Final Four as a sophomore, falling short of Texas’ first national title since 1986 both times. That history adds something to her current motivation that no regular-season success can replicate. She has described those near-misses not as failures but as a reference point, a reminder of how far the work can take her and where she still has room to be sharper.
Now in her junior year, she has also grown into a more vocal presence on the floor and in the huddle. That evolution has not come naturally. She is not much of a talker by her own description, but she noticed the effect her voice had when she did use it. The team’s energy shifted. Practice became something different. She credits years of watching Harmon lead as the thing that finally pushed her to step into that role herself.
What Kevin Durant told her before the tournament
Away from the court, Booker made history this season as the first athlete to sign a Nike collaboration alongside Kevin Durant, her self-described favorite player. She called the partnership surreal and said she still struggles to fully absorb it. The deal came ahead of some of his existing arrangements, which made the recognition land even harder for her.
Durant’s tournament advice was short. He told her to go take it because no one was going to hand it over.
Rori Harmon plays through a hand injury in the Sweet 16
The Sweet 16 matchup against No. 5 Kentucky at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth brought an early scare today. Harmon went down midway through the first quarter after her right hand collided with Kentucky guard Asia Boone during a screen. She fell and landed on the same hand, walked to the bench visibly in pain, but returned before the quarter ended and made a jump shot before being substituted out.
She spent part of the second quarter on the bench with ice on the hand before re-entering with Texas leading 33-15 and was seen flexing it while in play. By the second half she was back on the court without a brace or wrap in sight, and the game moved forward.
Texas is now one win away from its third consecutive Elite Eight appearance. The national championship, the one that has been missing from the Moody Center wall since 1986, remains the only item left on the list.
Story credit: usa today