With 23 seconds remaining in the Final Four game against UCLA, down by three points, junior forward Madison Booker crossed the ball over from her right hand to her left hand as she drove into the paint.
Guarded by Bruins senior center Lauren Betts, she looked determined to cut UCLA’s lead further with a layup over the looming 6-foot-7 star. Taking into account her track record coming into the contest, Booker would be anticipated to come up with a late moment of magic.
But not on Friday night.
Betts’ wingspan and positioning were too much — the swatted attempt pushed Booker to a shocking 3-23 from the field, an uncharacteristic showing that included an over 33-minute wait between her first- and second-made shots. Booker was taken aback by the extent of her struggles.
“Honestly, every shot I took, I thought it was going in,” Booker said. “I think their length and size definitely bothered us a little bit. Yeah, that’s really it.”
The block, then clutch free throws by UCLA senior guard Kiki Rice, served as a final nail in the coffin for the Longhorns, who fell 51-44, ending their hopes of securing the program’s first national title since 1986.
Booker was at the center of Texas’ startling offensive woes. Scoring just six points as a team in the first quarter, the Longhorns went on to total its season-low in points and the fewest under head coach Vic Schaefer since losing to South Carolina in the 2021 NCAA Tournament.
“We had plenty of looks at the cup that we just missed. I mean, we just missed shots. I don’t have an explanation for (the shooting woes),” Schaefer said.
Even so, his team still found ways to close in on the Bruins’ lead. After digging a 10-point hole within the opening period, there were a plethora of turning points from the second quarter on that seemed destined to give way to a complete comeback.
A seven-point run by sophomore forward Justice Carlton in the third quarter cut the margin to one. Well before that, a three-pointer from freshman guard Aaliyah Crump halfway through the second quarter got Texas’ deficit to just three.
The Longhorns’ late run in the fourth quarter saw them return the game to one possession again, despite UCLA accumulating a lead as large as 13 in the final period.
But each momentum shift came and went, none coming to fruition in the form of a lead change. Texas led for just 54 seconds throughout the whole game, that time coming soon after tipoff.
“We never thought they were going to go away,” UCLA head coach Cori Close said. “But I did think we were really connected, and we really believed in our anchor. We just kept asking ourselves, ‘What is our next right step?’”
For the Bruins, who were held to their own scoring season-low in a physical game, which Close likened to a “rugby match,” it wasn’t clean either. Yet with points coming at a premium — the result of exhausting, full-court defensive pressure from both sides — what mattered was finding the needed answers to navigating a low-scoring contest.
Texas forced 11 more turnovers than it gave up and brought down 10 more offensive rebounds than UCLA, ultimately outshooting its opposition by 21 attempts. But the two-way rhythm it established over the course of the season came crashing down because of disappointing, even unlucky, shooting. UCLA took advantage.
Friday’s contest was more than winnable. For Schaefer, that reality accentuated the heartbreak of a second-straight Final Four defeat.
“I think we feel like, in our locker room, we let one get away,” Schaefer said. “I think this one will haunt me, as the coach, probably till the day I die.”
