Texas embraces the role of March Madness villain, braces for new women's foil in Gonzaga
Like many others across the country, Texas senior DeYona Gaston watched a lot of basketball over the past weekend.
LSU-Middle Tennessee on Sunday. Indiana-Oklahoma and Iowa-West Virginia on Monday.
“I was at the edge of my seat the whole game,” Gaston said of Iowa’s 64-54 win.
How about Monday’s Gonzaga-Utah game? Gaston admitted that she caught only part of that one because she fell asleep. But in her defense, Gonzaga wrapped up its 77-66 victory well after 10:30 p.m. in Austin. Gaston also probably knew she’d watch film of the game later.
The Texas forward and the Longhorns will face Gonzaga in the Sweet 16 round of the NCAA Tournament on Friday night. Texas (32-4) and Gonzaga (32-3) are the Nos. 1 and 4 seeds in the Portland 4 region. The winner will play either No. 2 Stanford (30-5) or No. 3 North Carolina State (29-6) on Sunday for a trip to the Final Four.
“Yeah, I'm excited. I've been excited. I've been excited since the summer, actually,” Gaston said. “We've been in the gym a lot more, and I've seen that. I just knew for a fact that we were going to do pretty good this year.”
Gonzaga 101: the Longhorns have been cramming
While meeting with the local media Tuesday, Texas players were quizzed about what they knew about this Gonzaga team. Gaston, who once played for a few months on a Houston-area AAU team with Gonzaga twin guards Kayleigh and Kaylynne Truong, noted that “they’ve got some shooters.” Fellow forward Aaliyah Moore delivered a similar scouting report. Freshman point guard Madison Booker described the Zags as disciplined and aggressive.
Texas has had to study up on Gonzaga over the past few days because the Longhorns and Zags have never played each other. Yes, of the 1,654 games that Texas has played in its history, none has been against Gonzaga.
What is there to know about Gonzaga?
The champion of the West Coast Conference during the regular season, Gonzaga has set a school record for wins in a season and is enjoying its highest seed ever in the NCAA Tournament. With a win Friday, Gonzaga would make just its second appearance in an Elite Eight round; Texas has reached it 11 times.
The Zags boast the best 3-point shooting percentage at the Division I level at 40.1%. Their free-throw and field-goal percentages also rank in the top 10. Four Gonzaga starters are graduate students, the exception being All-American candidate Yvonne Ejim, who's simply a senior.
Led by longtime coach Lisa Fortier, Gonzaga beat Stanford by 18 points in December. Like Texas, Gonzaga has wins over Alabama, Arizona and Liberty on its résumé.
“They're obviously really, really good, and we’ll have to play really well,” Texas coach Vic Schaefer said. “We see teams similar in Oklahoma and Iowa State and things like that that can all shoot the 3 and spread you out.”
Texas basketball embraces the roll of Sweet 16 villain
One Longhorn does have on-court experience with Gonzaga. Guard Shaylee Gonzales faced the Zags nine times while playing at BYU from 2018-22. She averaged 16.1 points against her West Coast Conference rivals, and her career-high rebounding total of 12 was recorded in a 2022 game against Gonzaga. Gonzales’ BYU teams went 6-3 against Gonzaga in those nine matchups.
Don’t expect Gonzales to grab a clipboard Friday, though. As a starter who often plays 40 minutes a game, she’ll have other responsibilities.
“We might talk about it casually,” Schaefer said.
After opening its tournament run with wire-to-wire wins over Drexel and Alabama at Moody Center, Texas now must win on a neutral court. The definition of "neutral" might be subject to interpretation, though. Gonzaga is about 350 miles from Portland's Moda Center while Stanford is within a long day's drive.
Schaefer has chafed at a setup that placed all of the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games in Portland, Ore., and Albany, N.Y., this year, but it is what it is. He did point out that Texas won three games against Kansas, Kansas State and Iowa State in Kansas City, Mo., at the Big 12 Tournament this month. Plus, playing in a hostile environment will allow Texas to lean into a mentality that pits the Longhorns against the world.
"They like playing the villain," Schaefer said. "You ask Aaliyah Moore, she loves playing the villain, and I do too."
Is that so, Aaliyah?
"I guess that's true," Moore said. "He has said that to me: Don't we love being the villain? I told him we sure do so because I feel like you underestimate us — that's fine. We'll just keep proving to you again and again that we can do it," Moore said. "I put us up against anybody, any day, but yeah, we'll be the villain. That's perfectly fine."
Sweet 16
Friday-Sunday, Moda Center in Portland, Ore.
Friday's Sweet 16 — No. 2 Stanford (30-5) vs. No. 3 North Carolina State (29-6), 6:30 p.m., ESPN; No. 1 Texas (32-4) vs. No. 4 Gonzaga (32-3), 9 p.m., ESPN, 103.1; Sunday's Elite Eight — TBA
Covering the Longhorns
American-Statesman beat writer Danny Davis is in Portland, Ore., to provide coverage of the Longhorns' NCAA Tournament run in the Sweet 16. Follow our coverage on hookem.com throughout the weekend, including our live blog during Friday night's Texas-Gonzaga game.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas Longhorns, Gonzaga to meet in NCAA Sweet 16 women's basketball
