Golden: Twenty years later, can Texas basketball teams repeat the 2003 Final Four double?
Are the Texas basketball teams good enough to make it to the last dance?
It’s been two decades since the programs enjoyed their finest hours, and now with the regular-season finales in clear view, the Texas men and women are each occupying first place in the Big 12, which has the Moody maniacs thinking about some double trouble when it comes to the NCAA Tournament.
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The Texas basketball teams are thinking big.
Bigger than a Big 12 regular-season championship.
Much bigger than a conference tournament championship.
Both Texas and Oklahoma are tied for first place in their respective conferences, the ladies at 12-3 with Saturday’s opponent Oklahoma, the men at 11-4 with Kansas.
If we had a time machine — a 1985 DeLorean with a flux capacitor would come in handy — a quick trip back 20 years would be the perfect piece of nostalgia given how things are going at present.
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In the two decades since those teams advanced all the way to the national semifinals, the programs have undergone some notable changes, particularly at head coach where Jody Conradt splits time these days between the golf course and a courtside seat at Moody Center, while the men are working on their third coach since Rick Barnes was fired here and hired at Tennessee in what seemed like seconds later.
Texas qualified both men’s and women’s teams in the 2003 Final Four in New Orleans and Atlanta, respectively, and while emerging stars Carmelo Anthony of Syracuse and Diana Taurasi of Connecticut single-handedly ended magical seasons in the semifinals, Longhorn Nation puffed out its collective chest following that season.
There has been some success in the last 20 years, but it hasn’t always come in the same season. The men have made it to the Elite Eight only twice since 2003 — in 2006 and 2008 — while the women never made it back under Conradt, and did it once in Karen Aston’s eight seasons (2016). Vic Schaefer has led the program to back-to-back Elite Eights in his first two seasons, falling to Stanford and South Carolina, who happen to be the last two national champions.
Of the two, the Texas men stand the best chance to navigate the NCAA minefield because they have proven time and time again that they are one of the best teams in the best conference in the country.
With three games remaining — at Baylor on Saturday, at TCU next Wednesday and the regular-season finale at home against Kansas on March 4 — Texas will be hard-pressed to run the table and win its first league regular-season title since the 2008 team that went 31-3 with stars like D.J. Augustin, Damion James and A.J. Abrams leading the way.
That said, this thing is more about making a deep tourney run than about seeding, especially with interim coach Rodney Terry coaching for the job.
This team gets it from so many sources. Guard Marcus Carr should finish as the runner-up to Jalen Wilson as the league player of the year and Terry should have that interim tag removed from his title. He has done a masterful job of keeping this talented train on the tracks in the two months-plus since he took over for Chris Beard. The men are a deep, experienced group of non-panickers that show the type of intangibles and poise that make a deep playoff run likely.
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The women are a fun watch but are much more vulnerable because of the lack of depth in the backcourt. They have athletic post players and a couple of good 3-point shooters in Shaylee Gonzales and Shay Holle, but the injury status of guard Sonya Morris remains a concern because she takes a truckload of pressure off point guard Rori Harmon and, better yet, is adept at creating her own shot, whereas the others are pretty dependent on Harmon's playmaking to get them scoring opportunities.
The quality of the national field has gotten much better over the years in the women’s game, but unlike the men, one team stands head and shoulders above the rest. South Carolina isn’t perfect, but Dawn Staley’s defending national champions are battle-tested and tournament-tough.
A much-deserved retirement for No. 10
Dressendorfer earned it: Texas pitching great Kirk Dressendorfer getting his No. 10 jersey retired on March 25 was the best news coming out of Tuesday’s home baseball opener aside from the needed win over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
Besides being one of the nicest players to come through the program, Dressendorfer’s jersey retirement is a feel-good moment because he more than earned the privilege of his number being immortalized after going 45-8 with 33 complete games and three All-America nods.
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He will join Scott Bryant (No. 25), Roger Clemens (21), Burt Hooton (20), Brooks Kieschnick (23), Keith Moreland (3), Greg Swindell (21), Huston Street (25) and Taylor Jungmann (26) as UT's retired baseball jerseys.
Hopefully the administration will keep the momentum going by retiring the jerseys of other deserving baseball legends. Two that come to mind from the Cliff Gustafson era are shortstop Spike Owen (No. 1) and pitcher Richard Wortham (24), whose 50 career wins are one of UT baseball's most unassailable records.
Center fielder Drew Stubbs (13) and catcher Taylor Teagarden (31) were mainstays on Augie Garrido’s teams that played in consecutive College World Series title series, winning it all in 2005.
You want defense? Look elsewhere
No defending NBA all-star game: You read in this space a couple of weeks ago that the NFL did a great job of reenergizing the sagging Pro Bowl by switching to a format with team competitions including flag football games.
After watching that YMCA run disguised as the NBA All-Star game, late commissioner David Stern must be turning over in his grave. It was unwatchable because the guys had zero interest in playing defense. At least back in the Michael-Magic-Larry-Isiah days, they clamped down on D in the fourth quarter.
Something has to change because fans are beginning to see it for what it is: a waste of time.
Be thankful that Mac McClung, a former Texas Tech guard who beat Texas with a 3-pointer in the last five seconds in a 2021 game at the Erwin Center, gave us something to smile about with his aerial artistry in winning the Slam Dunk contest.
The rest was pretty much blah.
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Longhorns seek Final Four double appearance for only time since 2003
