Standing between South Carolina and a Final Four? Who else but Vic Schaefer
He changed conferences and moved 650 more miles away — and yet somehow, some way, Vic Schaefer has a team facing off against South Carolina with a lot on the line.
When the No. 1 seeded Gamecocks play No. 6 Texas in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament Elite Eight on Tuesday, it will have been years since the two programs last met. No players from the most recent game, in 2016, are still around.
But the coach on the opposing bench, Schaefer, will be quite familiar to Dawn Staley. That’s what happens when you face off 15 times over eight seasons.
Schaefer built Mississippi State into Staley’s and South Carolina’s biggest rival and challenger in the SEC. Four times, they met in the SEC tournament championship game. Together, they accounted for every conference regular season and tournament title since 2014-15, though South Carolina did own the clear edge, going 12-3 head-to-head.
Then this past offseason, Schaefer left to join Texas and the Big 12, and it seemed as if the annual battle of basketball minds between Staley and Schaefer would end. Throughout much of the NCAA tournament, more was made of a potential Elite Eight showdown of South Carolina’s tough defense and No. 2 seed Maryland’s prolific offense.
Texas upended all of that with a stunning upset of Maryland on Sunday. Now, instead of game-planning for how to slow down the nation’s top offense, Staley will once more have to contend with Schaefer’s style. At Mississippi State, Schaefer oversaw top-30 defenses for five consecutive seasons.
“It’s totally different,” Staley said. “You look at a powerful offensive team like Maryland, they play beautiful basketball when they’re able to play their style of play, push the ball down the floor, share the ball, give up a good shot for a great shot. ... And then you come back and play with a stingy defensive team like Texas, it is two different ends of the spectrum.”
And despite the history of success she’s had against Schaefer, Staley was quick to note Monday that many of those meetings between USC and MSU were tense affairs.
“I knew he’d be ready to play Maryland, I knew he’d come up with a game plan that gives them a chance to to win,” Staley said. “I’ve been on the other side of that, a lot of times. I think we’ve played 15 times, and they were all barn burners.”
That familiarity should come in handy with less than 48 hours between the end of Sunday’s games and the tip on Tuesday.
“It’s probably a great thing to have some familiarity with Texas and Vic, because of our long rivalry in the SEC. Especially at this stage of ... you get one day to prepare for them. And it’s good to know what you’re going to be faced with, because you’ve seen it so many different times,” Staley said.
Of course, that runs both ways.
“My staff and I really know what’s coming, and we’ll be able to convey that to our kids,” Schaefer said.
All in all, it adds up to something of a chess match between two coaches who, even if their players have changed, remain consistent in their emphases.
“I look forward to it because he’s trying to outfox us and we’re trying to outfox him and what he comes up with in the game plan and fortunately for us, we’ve been pretty successful, because we know,” Staley said. “I mean, it wasn’t easy, by any means. I mean, every game that we played was a close match for us. And that’s why I look forward to it, because you know what to expect.”
Among the many memorable games Schaefer and Staley have coached against each other, the 2017 national championship draws the most obvious attention. In 2020, they met for a regular season contest that wound up being the closest game USC had all year. Sophomore guard Zia Cooke remembers it well — she was the one who secured the game-sealing steal in the final few seconds.
“That game felt like a high school game, where it was a state championship game. It was very intense,” Cooke said. “They were a good defensive team. It was just exciting to play.”
Regardless of who’s coaching the opponent, Staley said, Tuesday’s matchup will come with plenty of pressure and drama. That’s just the nature of where the Gamecocks and Longhorns are.
“The Elite Eight game is the toughest game, because that is the threshold that you have to get over to get to the Final Four,” Staley said. “How we do it is we try to stay as fluid as possible offensively. Take the shots that the defense is giving us. Don’t over-dribble, don’t over-pass, but take the shots that the defense gives you.”
USC VS TEXAS BASKETBALL GAME INFO
What: NCAA tournament Elite Eight
Who: No. 1 seed South Carolina vs. No. 6 seed Texas
When: 7 p.m. Tuesday
Watch: ESPN
Where: Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas
