Texas coach Vic Schaefer singles out foul call against Madison Booker after loss
During South Carolina’s 74-57 win over Texas in the Final Four on Friday, Longhorns star guard Madison Booker was hampered by some early foul trouble.
Postgame, her coach had some thoughts.
After South Carolina ended UT’s season, Longhorns coach Vic Schaefer was largely complimentary of USC and emphasized: “We lost to a better team tonight.”
But he expressed his frustration with the foul trouble Booker, the team’s leading scorer and the two-time conference player of the year, found herself in during the first half — especially her third foul at the 2:29 mark of the second quarter.
“I didn’t think the one on the sideline was a foul,” Schaefer said. “If you’re going to go off of that and allow everything else that happened in the game, it’s not it.”
“But it is what it is. It was right in front of me.”
Booker was called for that foul, her third of the game, while defending South Carolina’s Tessa Johnson, who’d leaked out down the court and jumped up to try and corral a high pass. After the whistle, Booker put her hands to her head in disbelief.
Her third foul went down officially as a loose ball foul. Booker had already been called for a shooting foul and loose ball foul 21 seconds apart in the first quarter.
At the time of Booker’s third foul, Texas led 33-31. After she subbed out, USC ended the game on a 7-2 run and never trailed again, using a big second half to advance to the national championship game. Booker only played 24 of a possible 40 minutes.
“That was a big swing, for sure, right there,” Schaefer said of Booker getting called for two fouls in the first quarter. “But it’s part of the game. And, again, still I’ve got a lot of trust and confidence in her that she won’t get the next one.”
Booker a ‘tremendous player’
The “next one” came about two minutes before halftime and changed things for Texas. Booker had six points on 3-of-3 shooting in the first quarter but just five points over the remainder of the game. She finished with 16 points on 6-of-12 shooting.
Booker’s last field goal came at the 7:10 mark of the third quarter.
“Our defense is our defense,” South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said postgame. “Madison Booker is a tremendous player. A lot of what we’ve done, when we’ve had to scheme for her, is for her. ... She carries a heavy load of their scoring.”
Booker finished roughly five points below her season average for points per game (16.5) and seven minutes below her season average for minutes per game (31.3). In her previous four NCAA games, she’d averaged 18.8 points and 33.3 minutes.
Booker played 14 of a possible 20 second-half minutes and wasn’t called for another foul (though foul trouble can obviously change a player’s level of aggressiveness).
But in a game that featured 32 combined fouls, Schaefer (and a number of reactions on social media) said Booker’s third wasn’t the best call of the night.
“It was a rough game, a physical game,” Texas guard Rori Harmon said of Booker. “Of course, we wouldn’t want that in the situation, someone we go to a lot offensively. ... We were a little shook up a little bit.”
After South Carolina beat Texas for the third time in four tries and the second time in a row dating back to the 2025 SEC championship game, Schaefer said Booker’s third foul was a key swing in Friday’s game, which Texas led by eight points early.
“When Booker got in foul trouble in the first half, that seemed to be when things kind of changed a little bit,” he said. “It is what it is.”
This story was originally published April 4, 2025 at 11:27 PM.
