Dawn Staley of South Carolina and Vic Schaefer of Texas to renew the old rivalry in the NCAA women’s basketball tournament

SAN ANTONIO – Four years ago in Dallas, coaches Dawn Staley and Vic Schaefer met for the national women’s basketball championship. Tuesday – with Schaefer now leading a different team – the rivals face off again, this time for a spot in the Women’s Final Four.

South Carolina, the seed for the Hemisfair region, faces Texas No. 6 (ESPN, 7:00 pm Eastern time) in a fight the two coaches know they will be very familiar with. They faced each other 15 times when Schaefer was a coach in the state of Mississippi, where he took over in 2012-13. Staley has been in South Carolina since 2008-09.

Their Gamecocks were 12-3 in those meetings, including the 2017 NCAA championship game win and the 2016 SEC, ’17 and ’18 finals. Schaefer’s victories against Staley came in the regular season.

“We had our battles at the SEC and Vic did a great job in Texas in his first year to get to this point,” said Staley. “It’s probably a great thing to have some familiarity with Texas and Vic, especially at this stage, because you have a day to prepare. He’s trying to trick us, and we’re trying to get over him.”

Schaefer, whose team defeated runner-up in Maryland at Sweet 16, said there was a strong mutual respect between Staley and him, despite head-to-head competition on the court and in recruiting.

“She is a very successful person,” said Schaefer. “And do it the right way.”

The two coaches transformed their SEC teams, taking them to the Final Four for the first time in the program’s history. Staley’s Gamecocks also made it to the 2015 Final Four, losing to Notre Dame in the national semifinals, and Schaefer’s Bulldogs went to the 2018 national championship game, where they lost to Fighting Irish.

Schaefer, a native of Texas, chose to return to his home state when the Longhorns’ job opened in April 2020. He had won a national championship as an assistant at Texas A&M in 2011.

Texas is a traditional powerhouse in women’s basketball, but the Longhorns have not made it to the Final Four since 2003. They won the national championship in 1986. Schaefer came with the stated goal of updating these two things.

On Tuesday, they will play to see who stays in San Antonio, both led by six-foot-tall pole players: South Carolina sophomore Aliyah Boston and Texas junior Charli Collier.

“I’m always looking forward to playing Vic because of what he puts in his scouting reports, game planning and scams,” said Staley. “It is good to know what you are going to face, because you have seen it many times.”