Bohls: Oh-you had to love that win over the Sooners, right, Coach?

At some point in his coaching career, when he’s old and gray, Vic Schaefer will be happy.

Probably.

Well, maybe.

We think.

Ultimately, the third-year Texas women’s basketball coach will undoubtedly be thrilled by a performance by one of his teams, but then again, it might take a shutout. Until then, the Longhorns' perpetually dissatisfied coach will crab about a player failing to box out or recover a loose ball or play defense on a backdoor cut.

That said, Schaefer will settle for Wednesday night's 78-58 blowout of No. 14 Oklahoma at a jubilant Moody Center, a defensive masterpiece that kept the potent Sooners almost 30 points under their scoring average and should vault the Longhorns (15-6, 6-2) back into the national consciousness.

Texas entered Wednesday’s game unranked, with a merely respectable 14-6 record, and produced its best outing of the season to force a three-way tie for first in the Big 12 with OU and No. 18 Iowa State. The critical win also should open some eyes nationally and kick-start Texas' mission to nail down a host slot for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament in less than two months.

“We’re not really worried about the rankings,” said point guard Rori Harmon, the frizzy-haired phenom who got a scare with a nasty spill in Waco on Sunday but returned to play the full 40 minutes with 10 points, six assists and five rebounds. “I’m just focused on the games ahead of us.”

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Schaefer was grousing about his team’s lack of toughness the day before the game and questioned the club’s grit, but that surely doesn’t extend to Harmon, who’s tougher than a bill collector.

The message came through loud and clear during Schaefer’s intense practice drills because he’s just as hard on his players then as he is in the games.

“We have a consequence if we don’t box out or give up a back door,” Harmon said. “We have to run stadium steps.”

“Mount Schaefer,” the coach chimed in.

“And some pushups sometimes,” added Shaylee Gonzales, who had a marvelous game with 12 points and seven assists. The Longhorns, who will host Oklahoma State on Saturday, clearly understood the gravity of Wednesday's game. If they had lost that one, they would have sunk farther into national oblivion after receiving only enough votes to be situated 27th.

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Oklahoma's Jennie Baranczyk, who’s done a whale of a job in her second year at OU with an overall 41-12 record, said she doesn’t get why Texas still isn't ranked. She’s got a point since the Longhorns’ NCAA NET ranking is 11, much higher than their spot just outside the Top 25. And especially so since her Sooners are a lowly No. 43 in the NET, probably because they were crushed by No. 7 Utah 124-78 and lost by 11 to NET No. 25 Baylor.

Texas, too, dropped early season games to a pair of top-five teams, UConn and Louisville, with Harmon sidelined, but the Longhorns now have three consecutive wins over Top 25 clubs Kansas, Iowa State and OU.

“They’re an incredible basketball team,” Baranczyk said. “I don’t understand why Texas isn’t ranked. They should host (the first two rounds). They’re very good. Texas falling out of the rankings makes no sense to me.”

Probably not to Schaefer either or the lively Moody Center crowd of 6,623 that watched a galvanized Texas team limit the Sooners to six points in the third quarter. It was the second time in three games the Longhorns have done that and the 15th time this season.

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OU managed one bucket and four free throws that quarter and went almost 11½ minutes without a field goal. Sounds pretty tough to me.

“Y’all probably think I’m being too hard, but our toughness, it’s spotty,” Schaefer lamented about a half-hour after Texas’ biggest win of the season. “We got out-toughed for some rebounds, gave up a backdoor play for a dunk on an out-of-bounds play. I’m coaching for perfection. I’m never going to get it, but that’s what I’m asking for.”

He asks for a lot.

Well, he demands a lot. I’m not sure he ever poses it as a question.

But after back-to-back Elite Eight appearances, Schaefer’s gunning for more in this injury-wracked season that cost him his best center (Aaliyah Moore) for the season and best point guard (Harmon) for five early games, three of which Texas lost.

And his players accept Schaefer’s iron-fisted ways because they’re aiming for the same type of unrelenting consistency he's seeking.

“I’m looking for consistency,” Schaefer pleaded. “We can’t string together five or six games like this. The last time we do it at home, we then go on the road and stink it up. If this team is going to distinguish itself as being good with a chance to be really good, it starts in practice and holding people accountable.”

He’s doing that.

But it wouldn’t hurt to throw a few bouquets around either, especially after his ladies smothered one of the best offenses in women’s college basketball and stuffed a club that was averaging more than 87 points a game. The Sooners just beat Oklahoma State 97-93 last Saturday, have scored in the 90s seven times and put up 105 in their season opener against Oral Roberts.

No opponent has put the clamps on OU quite like these Longhorns, who used Sonya Morris’ defense on scoring machine Taylor Robertson with help from Shay Holle and even post player DeYona Gaston at times to fuel the team’s energy.

Robertson had 495 3-pointers in her career but managed just two Wednesday and was frequently denied the ball. The fifth-year senior guard got off just six shots the entire night, including four from long range, and was frustrated at every turn.

While Robertson still tied Kelsey Mitchell for the all-time NCAA career record with 497, Morris deserves an ovation for her key role in keeping her in check to help snap a five-game win streak by OU, which had won 13 of its previous 14 games. In addition, the Longhorns forced the Sooners into 24 turnovers, scoring 26 points off them and racing past them for 13 fast-break points in just a total team effort.

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But Texas will see them again in Norman on Feb. 25 and faces a road trip to Iowa State on Feb. 13, games with critical Big 12 championship implications.

Of course, to hear Schaefer tell it, and rightfully so, every game has implications.

“This is what they showed me,” Schaefer said. “Now why can’t we bottle this and do this every time the lights come on?”

He’ll get his answer over these last 10 games.

Saturday's game

Oklahoma State (14-6, 4-4) at Texas (15-6, 6-2), 7 p.m., LHN, 105.3

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Oh-you had to just love that performance, right, Coach? (Think again.)