PHOENIX — A block by Lauren Betts was key to helping the UCLA Bruins earn a ticket to their first NCAA Tournament championship game with a 51-44 win against Texas. But there are always two sides to a clutch play and Madison Booker, one of the top players in the nation, happened to be on the wrong side of it.
With 20 seconds left in regulation, Booker had the chance to put Texas within one point. She decided to attempt a layup against someone six inches taller than her. Betts got the stop and the Longhorns lost the little momentum they had.
“I think we feel like in our locker room we let one get away,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said postgame. “I think this one will haunt me as the coach for probably till the day I die.”
After Betts’ block, teammates Aaliyah Crump and Kyla Oldacre gave Booker a quick pat on the back. Booker did attempt to score again before the clock ran out, but she slipped while once again being guarded by Betts. It was an ignominious ending to by far the worst game of her All-American career.
On Friday, the junior forward scored just six points while shooting 3 of 23 from the field, the most missed attempts in her three seasons at Texas. It was a completely unexpected performance from a player averaging over 19 points per game, shooting over 53% from the floor and scoring over 22 points in the NCAA Tournament while drawing comparisons far and wide to former Longhorn Kevin Durant, who she shares the No. 35 Texas jersey with.
Texas has made consecutive Final Fours for the first time since the late-1980s, but both national semifinal losses have been relative no-shows: Friday’s offensive calamity and last year’s 17-point loss to South Carolina.
The feeling of disappointment was all over Booker’s face in the postgame press conference as she processed the magnitude of the dud. When asked about what went wrong in one of the biggest games of her career, Booker didn’t have an answer.
“I actually have no idea,” she said. “Lauren Betts, she’s 6-foot-7. It bothered a little bit. But honestly every shot I took, I thought it was going in. I really can’t pinpoint something. But yeah, I think their length and size definitely bothered us a little bit.”
Booker had some time to reflect during the game after she went to the bench with three minutes remaining in the third quarter. By that point, Booker had gone 1 of 16 from the field. She checked back in two minutes into the fourth, but her first shot attempt was another miss. Struggling to find offensive rhythm is rare for the All-American, who is known for her elite midrange game.
As Schaefer said, it is a devastating loss. Texas beat UCLA by 11 earlier in the season and had already beaten South Carolina, who it would have played Sunday in the national championship, two of three times this year, too — including a shellacking last month in the SEC Championship.
Veteran point guard Rori Harmon, whose historic Texas career ended Friday night, pleaded afterward for Booker’s misfortune not to be the story of the night.
“You got to realize, she’s human. She’s a basketball player,” Harmon said. “We want her to take those shots… I truly told Maddy, I don’t care. I don’t care what your statistics look like. There was plenty of other things that caused us to lose the game, not just because Madison missed her money midrange, ’cause I promise you we’ll continue to go back to her, we’ll continue to look for her, we’ll continue to tell her to take her shot.
“She’s going to sit here and be like, ‘this is on me.’ No, it’s not. It’s just not, so please give her a break.”
Harmon is right to point out that Texas’ loss was not all on Booker. The whole roster struggled against UCLA’s defense and only 6-foot-6 center Kyla Oldacre was able to break 11 points.
The first quarter was particularly ugly for the Longhorns as they fell behind 14-6, which marked their lowest scoring quarter of the season. That score also tied the fewest points by any team in a quarter of a national semifinal game since quarters began in 2016.
To be fair, UCLA didn’t do much better offensively because the tables turned in the second quarter when Texas held the Bruins to six points. UCLA had a 20-17 advantage at halftime, but both teams’ offenses left a lot to be desired. After two quarters, the teams combined for 39 rebounds and only 37 points.
By the end of the night, UCLA coach Cori Close said it was most definitely not a pretty game but she was glad the Bruins were able to lean on their defense. As for Schaefer, this loss hurts but he wanted his players — including Booker — to walk out of this season knowing they could be proud of themselves.
“Sometimes it’s just not your night,” Schaefer said. “But trust me, I’ve already been sitting in the locker room waiting for us to be able to come in here evaluating everything that happened. I go through my playbook of what I called, what I could have called.
“For Madison, she going to be back in this game again. She’s going to have the same opportunity again. Sometimes it takes once or twice when you’re here before you really find a way and you can convey that to your teammates that, ‘Hey, we got to really understand the opportunity we have in front of us and go execute.’ …My kids guarded and played their tail off. I’m so proud of them. I’m just disappointed that we couldn’t score a few more points.”
