'He's like a magician': Vic Schaefer guides injury-riddled Texas team to NCAA Tournament

There's a story that Texas women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer likes to tell.

OK, so there are plenty of stories that the verbose Schaefer likes to tell. But this particular tale is about his colleagues in the Texas athletic department.

"I've told you about sitting in that room with all those head coaches," Schaefer began recently, recalling a staff meeting with various Texas head coaches. There were coaches for 20 UT sports in that room, he said. Edrick Floréal (men's indoor track and field), Howard Joffe (women's tennis), John Fields (men's golf) and Dave O'Neill (rowing) all had won NCAA titles during the 2021-22 school year. Six NCAA runner-up finishes also could be celebrated.

The Elite Eight run recorded by Schaefer's team? "That's not good enough for the top half here at the University of Texas," he said.

As Schaefer often says, he is "coaching against the ghost." Or in this case, the other coaches at Texas.

On Saturday, though, he will be coaching against East Carolina, UT's opponent for the opener of its 35th appearance in the NCAA Tournament. Texas (25-9) and East Carolina (23-9) will battle at Moody Center for the right to play either Louisville (23-11) or Drake (22-9) in the second round Monday.

Texas enters the NCAA Tournament as a No. 4 seed. The Longhorns split the Big 12's regular-season championship with Oklahoma. In the Associated Press' final poll of the season, UT was No. 15.

It's been a busy year in the training room

The Longhorns did all of that despite having an injury report that's as lengthy as their list of accomplishments.

To be clear, Texas isn't the only team that has had to deal with injuries. UConn, which has been without All-American Paige Bueckers for the entire season and Azzi Fudd for part of it, had to postpone a game in January because it didn't have enough healthy players. Kansas State (Ayoka Lee), Iowa State (Stephanie Soares) and Baylor (Aijha Blackwell) had injuries to key players impact their championship chases in the Big 12.

But as Texas point guard Rori Harmon recently put it, "We've been through it this whole year."

Harmon, an all-American candidate, missed the first five games of the season with a toe injury. Forward Taylor Jones was sidelined for nine games with a lower body issue. Fellow forward Aaliyah Moore's season ended when she injured her knee in December. Due to a quad contusion, senior guard Sonya Morris hasn't played since Feb. 4. Then there was the season-long absence of reserve guard Kyndall Hunter, who elected to transfer this week after being away from the team all winter for personal reasons.

When Harmon returned to the lineup on Nov. 27, she started alongside Morris, Moore, Jones and guard Shaylee Gonzales. That quintet went on to play less than five minutes together this season.

Only five Longhorns have appeared in all 34 games. Gonzales is the team's only 34-game starter.

"You kind of, just have to deal with what you have and everybody is very capable of doing what they can do and giving to the team," Harmon said. "I know we had to switch up a lot of lineups."

Dealing with the injuries the only way he knows how

Schaefer has been unwilling to use those injuries as a crutch, though. "Look, I can't sit around and worry about the things I can't control," he told reporters last week at the Big 12 tournament. "I'm not a big excuse guy. Nobody cares. Nobody cares what the excuses are," he later retorted.

"He doesn't really talk about the injuries with us, either," UT associate head coach Elena Lovato said. "You know, he doesn't want anyone to have any doubt that we can get it done. So it's kind of like, OK, this is who we have, we've got to come up with a game plan for this team, and that's kind of how our meetings go."

Lovato said Schaefer is not a "'why me' kind of guy." Assistant coach Blair Schaefer shared those sentiments. In fact, she doesn't really know of any other way to describe her father.

She grew up watching her father work as an assistant coach at Arkansas and Texas A&M. By the time she decided to play for him at Mississippi State, "I already knew you show up, you get the job done, there's no excuses, you be accountable. And that's it."

That "no excuses" mantra is something the Schaefer family has also leaned on off the court. Blair's twin brother, Logan, suffered a serious brain injury in a wakeboarding accident in 2010. Then a 14-year-old, Logan was in a coma for four days. When he woke up, a long rehab awaited.

"When my brother had his accident in eighth grade, my brother had to learn how to walk again, talk again, feed himself, go to the bathroom, all the things and my dad always approached Logan, like, every day is a new opportunity to get better and be great, get your life back," she said. "And so that's why obviously Logan is the way he is today."

Schaefer's style of coaching is not for everybody. Since the end of his first season at Texas in 2021, 11 players have transferred out of the program, and not all of the departures were amicable.

'This has to be one of his best seasons ever'

But Schaefer has resonated with plenty. Harmon has said the Longhorns are "very much a reflection of coach Schaefer." Junior Shay Holle commended him for holding players accountable. Gonzales, who transferred in from BYU, described getting used to Schaefer as "a big learning curve," but added that she has become a better player.

"DeYona, she needs a challenge," said Shanett Gaston, the mother of junior forward DeYona Gaston. "We just felt that Vic was the type of coach that we feel could get her to the top player that she needs to be."

Holle noted this month that she has won three rings in her three years in the Texas program. Two of those rings are to celebrate UT's appearances in the Elite Eight in 2021 and 2022. That third ring was won this season.

Boasting the conference's best defense, Texas went 14-4 in Big 12 play. That record locked them in a first-place tie with Oklahoma for the Big 12 title. Texas had last won a conference championship in 2004.

Two weeks ago, Schaefer was named the Big 12 coach of the year. That marked the fifth time that conference coaches have tabbed him as their top coach since he was a three-time winner of the SEC's coaching award and the Southland Conference's 1996 recipient.

"With how things have gone, like injuries and just everything, this has to be one of his best seasons ever," Lovato said. "This man is maximizing what we have right now to work with, and that's why I work for him. I mean, he's like a magician."

Schaefer recently celebrated his 62nd birthday. And as he displayed while throwing out the first pitch at a Texas baseball game this week, the ol' coach still has his fastball.

Schaefer is still known to sleep in his office on the night before games, and his late-night trips to Whataburger for dinner — "I gotta have my No. 1 with cheese, no onions with mayo, Whata-sized with a Dr Pepper," he says — aren't unordinary. Lovato said the only time she beats him to the facility on other days is when she arrives for an early workout.

But there has been a calmness this season about Schaefer, who loves to grill, hunt and fish in his free time. Players like Harmon and Holle will tell you that they haven't noticed a difference. Lovato, however, believes Schaefer has become more comfortable since this is his third year at Texas and the pandemic restrictions of his first season are in the past.

As for Blair Schaefer, she feels that her father has begun to understand the value of bedtime. Don't get her wrong, the Texas coach is still obsessed about pregame preparations, but, "Sometimes I do feel like he'll show up one day and he'd be like, 'Man, I have to get a good night's sleep tonight. Otherwise I'm not going to be able to function tomorrow,' and he realizes he's pounding himself in the ground doing everything he can because he wants this team to succeed.

"I think he's still the same competitor," she continued. "But sometimes the wall does hit him at times and he does have to just realize, you know what, this team has good fundamentals, they're going to play their butt off for him and he's gonna be prepared for whatever situation comes because that's what legends do."

Schaefer may dispute some of what his daughter said. At least during this month.

"I'll sleep when I'm dead. You know, I'll rest when I'm dead," he said a few weeks ago. "Right now, man, it's go time. It's an opportunity. Let's go to work."

Saturday's game

(13) East Carolina at (4) Texas, 9 p.m., Moody Center, ESPN, 105.3

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Texas women's basketball coach Vic Schaefer has sure earned his pay