The Lady Vols' opponent in the Sweet 16 is Texas.

Before Tennessee meets the Longhorns in Birmingham, Alabama, Texas coach Vic Schaefer and players Rori Harmon, Madison Booker, Shay Holle and Taylor Jones met with the media.

Here's what they said.

TALK ABOUT IT IN THE ROCKY TOP FORUM

Q. Opening statement

VIC SCHAEFER: Good morning. Before I start, I just want to acknowledge someone who has given so much to the game, and it's my understanding they stepped down today. Doug Bruno. He's a dear friend and colleague. He's seen everything probably that's happened in this sport and then some. We obviously played them earlier in the year, and I had reached out to him several times with no response.

Then finally on game day I was able to talk to him on the phone. His voice sounded so good. It sounded like Doug, but he told me he wasn't going to be able to coach in the game that night.

Anyway, I just felt compelled to mention him thank him. Again, when you've been in the game as long as I have, it's people like him you just really come to appreciate because you've seen so much growth in the sport. He's had a big part in that, and I want to wish him the very best.

So just going into this game, again, really honored to be a part of the NCAA Tournament, but even added to that is the opportunity to be in a game with another program like the University of Texas and Tennessee that's so rich in tradition. The history of the game happened so much in Knoxville and Austin alike. I'm just honored to, again, have the opportunity to not only be in the NCAA Tournament, but to be involved in a game with them.

Coach Caldwell has done an incredible job with that team this year. They're really good. They could have easily have won 12 or 13 in our league. Were in just about every game all year long. They've had two great -- two of their better wins obviously are against Connecticut and Ohio State last week. You don't do that by accident.

She obviously has brought a lot of attention to the game, not only with their success, but how they've done it. Thief done it really, really well. It's a credit to her and her staff and her players because they play extremely hard. They're tough. So we're going to have to play really well tomorrow.

Proud of my team. It's not easy to be 33-3 coming out of the Southeastern Conference to have played I guess the second best schedule in the country behind South Carolina as far as the NET goes. I'm awfully proud of my group, but we're going to have to, obviously, be ready to go tomorrow and take care of the ball. It will be a guard-oriented game on one end, and then when you get on the other, you've got to have all five involved and playing really well. You've got to take care of the ball.

You've got to realize they basically have five players that average in double figures. So we'll have to be real attentive to that and really focused. We obviously had a knockdown, drag-out at our place earlier in the year. We were kind of running on fumes that week. We had already played Maryland on that Monday, on Martin Luther King Day. We had to come home and play them on Thursday. We were in the midst of, let's see if I can remember it, Sunday, Thursday, Monday, Thursday, Sunday stretch. Really had a tough game with them. Could have gone either way.

I'm sure they're confident going into the game. Rightfully so. I think our kids are ready to go. Again, for somebody that's been around and seen a lot in the game, Coach Caldwell has done an incredible job getting that thick turned around really quick. You have to give her and her kids a lot of credit for that.

THE MODERATOR: Questions, please.

Q. Does it help you guys having played them already since their style is different and with the subbing and the frenetic pace of the pressing that you have seen it once so your kids are accustomed to it, and they've seen it? Watching film is, okay, this is what we did the first time?

VIC SCHAEFER: For sure. It just seems so long ago. It's over a month and a half ago, I think. So it's been a while. It looks like it was on January 23rd or something like that, 21st. That's a long time ago. Two months ago.

I do think when you get in the NCAA Tournament, you think, okay, thank goodness you get out of the SEC and you don't have to go against those people because you have so much respect and admiration for everybody in our league. Then these things happen. I mean, they go into Ohio State, and they thumped them. They played really good. Those kids play so hard.

This is what happens, and so I'm sure they'll have a great crowd. They're a little bit closer than Knoxville here than we are at Austin. But I do think there's some familiarity on their part, and there certainly is a little bit on our part too.

Q. Vic, the Tennessee game would have been the last time Aaliyah played. I'm wondering in the six weeks since, how has she and Laila too kind of stepped up and helped in other aspects of this team?

VIC SCHAEFER: Yeah, you know, they still are involved every day. They're around. They're obviously doing their rehab and involved in themselves. They're off the floor, in the locker room. They're obviously involved with our players and still are a big part of what we do off the floor.

I know on the bench they're a lot of energy over there, which is important for our kids to have your friends and your teammates pulling for you. Sarah kind of runs that crew over there, but those two have really done a good job. They're great teammates, you know. They love their teammates, and their energy is infectious over there.

Q. Vic, I look up those names. It said Rori Harmon, Shay Holle, Taylor Jones. That's a lot of institutional knowledge in a tournament. How great is it to be old at this time of the year when some of these teams are doing this for the first time?

VIC SCHAEFER: Yeah, those kids, you're right, they've got a lot of mileage, a lot of wins. Again, it's one of the things that for me I just want it so bad for those kids. You want it so bad for them this time of year.

It's nice to have a veteran group like that on the floor. They've been there. I think they're unfazed. They're unflappable. Again, tomorrow is going to be really important that we take care of the ball. I think the first time we had 12 turnovers, and I think only two of them were directly a result of the press.

We're going to have to take care of them and take care of the ball and two of those names you just mentioned are veteran guards.

Q. You've bragged incessantly about Rori since she got here, and I think you started recruiting her when you were at Mississippi State, right?

VIC SCHAEFER: Yeah.

Q. I was curious, your first impressions of her, and why did you want to get her on board so quickly?

VIC SCHAEFER: Yeah, you know, I'll have to say it and my man here is from Mississippi State. I bet I was on the school plane a bunch flying to Houston to see her play when I was coaching there and recruiting her. She's somebody, obviously, that there were three really good guards that came out that year, and all of them -- Raven at South Carolina and Rori. We were in dire need of a great -- we knew who we were graduating and all that, and obviously when I got to Austin, Rori being two and a half hours from campus, she was our top priority. We had to try to hold on to Aaliyah Moore, who had already committed, and then we really had to go get Rori.

When you are building a program, it starts with your point guard. That was the one I felt like being two and a half hours from home, we had a great opportunity to get and needed to get. As you know, when you are at the University of Texas, you try to close the borders and close the walls and keep the good ones in the state. In my mind she was one of the best in the country, if not the best.

I knew Raven was closer to South Carolina, and I knew they were recruiting her. I had been to her games as well, but Rori was the one in my mind once we got to Austin, we had to really focus on. Boy, she's not disappointed a lick. You are talking about a kid that has scored almost 1,300 points, over 700 assists. The only player in the history of our university, in our storied history, to do that, and could potentially have another year to really separate herself to be at a point where no one will ever catch her again.

So, again, if she was sitting here, she would give her teammates credit because they've been able to finish a lot of those passes that she's made, but she's just an incredible young lady. I'm a better coach, better father, better husband because I've been around her every day. I'm really thankful that I've been able to -- there's some comfort when you are a head coach knowing that that's the engine, that's who is running your group, your team. Then we've obviously been able to add Madison Booker, who has been able to do the same thing once we lost Rori a year ago. Book stepped up and was just incredible.

So now that's kind of where you start. When you think about it, when you're going into the game, that's two good ones that you start with. Then you've got Shay Holle that's been here five years. There's a lot of comfort in that.

Q. You mentioned earlier that you have been in the game a long time. You know the history between these two programs. It goes way, way back, even when they weren't in the same conference, they played each other. I wonder if you could talk about the fact that these are two institutions that bought into women's basketball a lot earlier. I know it doesn't necessarily have to do with the game itself, but the bigger picture of it and what that means meeting in an NCAA Tournament.

VIC SCHAEFER: Yeah, you have to -- everything you just said, for me obviously I've coached against Pat Summitt, and you have Holly Warlick, Kellie Jolly Harper. Tennessee women's basketball, University of Texas women's basketball, those two institutions, along with just a handful of others, their administrations understood the value that women's basketball had and could bring to an institution. They invested in it. They invested in it with, obviously, two unbelievable coaches.

Again, I stand here today so humbled and honored to have that opportunity to now be in an NCAA Tournament having to play against them. Obviously, I had to play against Tennessee when I was at Mississippi State. They had never beaten Tennessee when I took that job at State. And then go to Texas where those two had really a history of playing each other nonconference every year since the beginning of time.

For me and I know Coach Caldwell embraces where she is, and she understands the history as well. I'm sure she feels like I do. It's just an honor to represent two entities, two huge women's basketball corporations, if you will, that have been around for so long, and now we're entrusted.

I mean, it can be a heavy burden if you let it, to be quite honest with you. I cherish my visits and my time with Coach Conradt so much. I love and respect and have admiration for her. It's always good just to be around her and be with her, but I also have a Coach Harston, who has actually been on both staffs, who is one of our sport admins and then Chris Plonsky, who has seen it all. You are talking about three women on just my campus that have invested so much in women's basketball, their entire life. For me that's what I've been entrusted with, and I don't take it lightly.

I know Coach Caldwell doesn't take her opportunity lightly either at a place like the University of Tennessee where, you're right, they have been there from day one just like Texas, and have seen the value of what happens when you invest in a program, invest in coaches, invest in facilities, locker rooms, all those things. It's a real honor for me, I can tell you.

Q. When you were talking about Rori, you mentioned her injury that she had that knocked her out for quite a bit. How did you see her grow as a person, rehabbing that injury and working her way back to the court?

VIC SCHAEFER: I can tell you, I've seen one other kid in my career work as hard as she did. You know, this year's schedule, I put it off a week. We didn't open the first week. We opened the second week because I was trying to give Rori an extra week to get ready. She scrimmaged USC in October in a closed-door scrimmage. She was ready to go. She probably could have gone at five months, but we don't play anybody in July, and there's no point in rushing her.

The kid's commitment, her toughness. You know, with that injury, it's not the physical piece as much. It's the mental piece and getting over that. We were laughing the other day talking about that first outside competition experience when we went and played in October up in Dallas. We met USC up there. We talked about how she was a step slow, which was still a step faster than just about everybody else on the floor. There was a couple of guards that USC had that gave her a little problem, but we laughed about that because, you know, you look at her play now, and you are amazed.

You look at her and her movement, her explosiveness. I said this even before she got hurt, the torque and just the power that she plays with, the change of direction, I'm amazed. I was amazed out there today. I'm amazed every day. She does something every day that's just explosive, off the charts. It's what's allowed her to be so good on both ends of the floor.

So to answer your question, while she's hurt, I got to move Booker into the point guard spot. She's helping bring Madison along and telling her, Hey, Coach is calling that play for this reason. He ain't just calling it for grins. You got to understand, he's calling it because he wants this person to get the ball, and he wants this for this. So she's coaching over there and helping her along with everybody else. Then if she was in here today and I heard her say this I think yesterday or the day before, she would look at me some days and go, I see what you were meaning by that, Coach. You were right the last, you know, two or three years.

Then last year we were standing on the side in January, and now she's -- you know, the best press attack, y'all, is a great point guard. It isn't how many press plays you run. It's just having a good point guard.

We were standing there one day. I was putting in three press attacks. We were fixing to go play West Virginia, who pressed 40 minutes. So Booker is my point guard. We're having to run through all these. She looked at me and said, Coach, I don't ever remember all these press attacks. I said, No kidding, we ain't never done these before, but I got to put them in for this team because you're over here with me standing here talking to me about this.

So, you know, it's just she brought so much to the table on the floor. Then she's off of it, but yet, she's over there coaching, mentoring our players. It's why I tell her all the time, whenever she's done playing, I'll have a spot for her on my staff because she and I are on the same page so many times. She calls plays that I'm thinking about. Before I can get them out of my mouth, she's calling them out and looking at mismatches and things like that.

So it's fun to coach a team like this, and it's really fun to coach a team that's got a point guard like her.

Q. This is mainly for Shay and Taylor. I wanted to get your thoughts. Did you get to this point where you know you have a finite number of practices and games? Does it roll through your mind when you go to practice, we only have this many more practices, this many more games as Longhorns? a

SHAY HOLLE: Yeah, it definitely does. I'll go into a practice not necessarily thinking about it, but at some point it will just be, like, Whoa, this is probably like maybe one of my last times doing this or that. Me and Taylor are talking about it last night at dinner. She had counted it. I think we're at nine or ten days of that's our max, you know, if we go all the way, which is just crazy to think about.

You spend so much time doing one thing, and you love it. So you definitely think about it. I've said this before. Maybe it makes a drill you don't like that much not so bad anymore. You just want to soak it all in and enjoy every moment really.

TAYLOR JONES: I didn't really think about it much until our last game in Moody. Then we had our potentially last practice in Moody. I just think that that's when it started to set in.

Yesterday at dinner, like Shay said, we just started talking about how, like, close the end is. It's crazy to think. I mean, I've been going at it for this is my sixth year now, so I've been in the game a while, in the college basketball game. So it's a new feeling.

Q. Rori, we saw JuJu Watkins go down earlier this week with an ACL tear. As somebody who has recovered from one themselves, how does the emotional and the mental recovery compare to the physical recovery?

RORI HARMON: It's like 10 and 2. The physical is honestly when I look back, it's so easy. Hmm, I wouldn't say so easy, but looking back, like, it was a lot easier because the mental comes after when you are clear. You are cleared, and you are, like, okay, I'm physically good. They wouldn't release me if I wasn't physically good, but it's not like they help you with your mental as much as your physical.

When you get to playing and it's, like, the mental now looking back, I'm still going through it. It's not something that kind of just, like, goes away just because you start playing again. It's definitely a lot harder. Obviously, I hate that for her. Absolutely don't like that.

We're not even, like, that close, but I've said before, this is a basketball player, women's basketball player. We all stick together. I just wish she has the best recovery. Just so she knows that she's going to come back better, faster, stronger. Obviously it's going to take a lot longer than any regular ankle injury, but she's going to be a better player than she was before, so...

Q. For Shay, what are the advantages? You guys are young in life, but old college basketball players. What advantages does that give you in a pressure situation like this? For Rori, Coach Schaefer has been saying all year, "I want it so bad for them, y'all." How bad do y'all want it for him because he's been at the doorstep twice in the championship?

SHAY HOLLE: I'll answer your first question. I think being older. Taylor said it's her sixth year. This is my fifth year. I think it gives you a certain level of confidence. My dad always told me growing up, you get confidence from your preparation. You know when you don't do the preparation, and that's when you get nervous and a little stressed out. When you do the prep, you feel good in those moments. We've had a lot of prep, obviously, being older.

I think just being in those moments before and knowing how you handle it and how you can learn from maybe moments you didn't handle it the way you wanted to and just learning from that.

Yeah, it just gives you a certain level of comfort, I think, in pressure moments.

RORI HARMON: To answer your question, you said how bad we want it for him? Of course, we all want a national championship and to get to that last game, but I think us showing how much we care about not just, like, ourselves and our teammates and stuff, but the coaches are the ones that are staying up late nights, staying at the gym, trying to prepare us for these games, and to show respect to that, we're going to play our hearts out. There's not going to be a doubt in our mind, in their mind that we're not going to show respect just by playing our hearts out and trying our best to play as good as we can and follow that scout and follow the plan.

So, yeah, that's how bad we want it for him because he works so hard for us.

Q. Rori, another question for you. During your rehab from your injury, did your view or perspective on the game of basketball change at all? Like, did your love and admiration and appreciation grow for it? How did your view on the game change as you were viewing it from the sidelines?

RORI HARMON: If I'm being honest, I absolutely hated it. Right after I got injured, I didn't want to see anything. I didn't want to go to practice. Mind you, that was just a day after I tore my ACL.

Eventually you get out of your own funk and stop being so selfish and into yourself and think about -- it was 12 games in. I'm still on the team. I'm still a player on the team. I just may not be playing. They still have a whole season. I have to be there. Obviously I spent a lot of time just seeing a different perspective of the game, like you said, and understanding -- I think those moments, like, you have to look on the bright side of some things. I just thought being able to focus and learn the game of basketball from another point of view, because I'm so used to looking at it from being on the court, but sometimes, like Coach might be right about what he says when he is fussing. You don't necessarily understand it like if you are in a game, but when you are on the sidelines, you actually are, like, okay, okay.

I think it helped a lot with just slowing the game down for me coming into this year. I think I learned a lot from Madison from that point guard position. Obviously she can say she learned a lot from me, but I learned a lot from her because at that moment I was, what -- we were just 12 games in. I'm not perfect. I can still learn something from someone, and it doesn't always have to be someone older or more experienced. So I learned from Madison still, so yeah.

Q. Another question for Rori. I wanted to ask what does Coach Vic mean to you personally? When he spoke to us a few minutes ago, he spoke so highly of the process of getting to know you over the years and the growth that he's seen from you, and what you've done for him as a coach, as a father, as a husband. I'm just curious from your vantage point, what has he meant to you?

RORI HARMON: You don't come here if you don't have a relationship with the coaches, and I built the best relationship with him and Lovato and Blair when they were recruiting me from Mississippi State.

He kind of made the comment the other day, like, saying we're not even with our parents as much at all. We see them at games every once in a while, but truly he's like our father figure, like, every day. To see how he talks about us and especially to talk about me and how he just truly cares.

I've known he's cared about me a lot, but just to see when I went down with my ACL injury and I had a good little long moment with him in his office and to see, it truly broke him. That's something that you really appreciate as a player.

He cares about you not just as a player, but as a person. I think that goes a long way because basketball is not who we are, but it's what we do. I think he truly does understand that.

As someone who is going through practice every day, like, spending 11 months out of 12 months in the year to perform well, I think he does a really good job of just showing how much he cares. That means a lot to me, so I'm going to show that way as well.

Q. Madison, Rori talked about learning from you. What have you learned from Rori the last two years, and is there anybody that hates losing more than Rori?

MADISON BOOKER: I will say I learned how to be a leader for this team. I just think watching her the first 12 games of my freshman year before she went down, just watching how she led this team, watching how she -- she was like a -- I can't even explain it, but she was like the head of this team. Whatever she did, we were right behind her with just like the energy she put on defense, just like the little things like details. She's always first in line in practice. Everything. She's always the first one up.

Just like that kind of leadership, and I think that this year I've kind of taken more of that role too. Just, you know, being I guess experienced. Just starting point guard, being like in Elite Eight. I took that with me this year, more of a leader.

I'm still probably not the leader I guess they want me to be, but I'm still learning here and there. I'm still learning here and there, but I think just that one piece that people don't see a lot, is really what I've learned. It's what I'm actually happy to learn from her.

Q. Madison, you were Player of the Year in the Big 12 as a freshman. Go to a completely new conference; you're Player of the Year. How do you feel like your game has grown? Then specifically the player you are now going against a heavy pressing team like Tennessee, how have you grown to adapt better in those situations?

MADISON BOOKER: I think last year we played West Virginia. I remember we didn't have Rori. We didn't have Rori there to break the press. She's probably like the one-man press break, whatever you want to call her. We didn't have her. I was the point guard.

I remember I had nine turnovers that game in the press. Yeah, that was a great stat line. Nine turnovers, nine assists. I think similar points. Almost had a triple-double.

But just learning from that moment, just looking at my turnovers, I think I've kind of learned patience. Don't go their speed; go my speed. For tomorrow Tennessee, I think it's going to be the same thing. Patience. They're going to try to speed you up, but I'm just going to go at my own pace.

Just coming to a new conference, being Player of the Year is a blessing, for real, but I think this year is more of a target on my back, more of a mental thing. I think also I have leaned on my teammates a lot for that. I thank them for that a lot because when I shot bad, they picked me up. You have Kyla down there, Taylor, Shay hitting clutch threes, Rori, leading our team. The freshmen, they're doing their thing. I had to find new ways to provide for this team.

But I really thank them for everything, like all my awards and stuff like that. It's really just coming from them. Thank you, all.

Q. Taylor, what do you remember from that first game against Tennessee? Then what as a team do you need to do again from that first game to win again tomorrow?

TAYLOR JONES: I remember it was a very fast-paced game. They subbed a lot. I think we got a lot of O-boards. That's what I remember.

I think just always mentally having to be engaged because how many subs that they have and just how fast the game is. You can't have any mental lapses or they'll take advantage of it.

What was the second part of the question?

Q. (Off microphone).

TAYLOR JONES: I think crashing the boards. I think we did a good job at getting rebounds and keeping them off the boards. They have height. They're really athletic, and they get to the boards quite a bit. So making sure that we block them out and doing our job, getting to the rebounds, for the posts especially, but for the guards and all of us as a whole, breaking their press, they have 40-minute in-your-face defense.

The last two practices we've done a really good job, I think, playing against our guys and learning to play at our pace and not let them speed us up. Also, transition too will be key, but I'm confident in our team, and I'm excited for the rematch.

Q. This is for any player who wants to take this. What contributions have you all gotten from Aaliyah and Laila with them unable to play, but obviously still a part of this team?

MADISON BOOKER: So much. Laila, Michigan Laila, was balling. She came here, and she don't play at all, but she still gives so much effort off the court. Just the advice she gives to everyone. I think she's always, like -- every timeout she's always saying something.

A-Mo, she's been here before. Also, she's in the forward's ear. Jak, that's why she's playing so well this year. I think her giving Jak confidence and telling Jak, patience is going to be your best friend basically. Like I credit that to her because Jak is doing well on both ends for us. We need her to keep doing well.

Yeah.

RORI HARMON: When I see Laila and Aaliyah, unfortunately, they have their own thing going on where they can't, like, play with us on the court, but just to see how engaged they are. For people who know, they're going through their own things. They're probably going through their own mental battles and physical battles. To see that they're going through that and are still positive every day and just engaged in all the practices, all the games. It just brings so much positive energy.

I really appreciate when they do that because I know and understand, like, that feeling of not being able to help and you're on the sidelines a lot. I have a lot of gratefulness to them and appreciation because we need every single player. It doesn't matter if you don't touch the floor or always touch the floor. We need everyone.

SHAY HOLLE: I think what Rori mentioned, when she was out last year, how maybe you see some things that you're, like, oh, Coach is right about that, and things that are harder to see when you are on the court. I think them being able to see those things and voice that to us really helps everyone that is on the floor because it's just like nice. You can take things from Coach Schaefer, but sometimes it's just nice to have it from a teammate as well who has a different relationship with you and can maybe word things differently and help different people understand that.

So I think that brings -- that's really beneficial for us as well.

TAYLOR JONES: I think all three of them basically summed it up, but both of them have been to the battles and played so much basketball. Even if Laila hasn't played many games here, there's a certain wiseness and level of experience that they have. Being able to hear them on the sideline and see their input, you know that whatever they say is valid.

I also think both of them do a great job at just bringing energy and encouraging. When you come out of a timeout and even if the other team goes on a run, you come out and you hear both of them and also our freshmen just keeping us up and being as positive as possible.

It's really uplifting for the team, and it's really impactful too. Neither of them have to do that. They are both going through hard times with their own things that they're dealing with, and it's tough enough not being out on the court. It also is pretty tough giving the amount of energy that they give us.

So we're really thankful for them, and they have a great impact on our team.

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