Texas vs South Carolina prediction: Preview, how to watch NCAA Tournament game

TAMPA, Fla. − Back in the Final Four for the first time since 2003, Texas will meet an opponent that has a little more familiarity with this round of the tournament.

Texas has drawn South Carolina (6 p.m. Friday, ESPN, 98.1) as its Final Four opponent. While Texas star Madison Booker wasn’t alive the last time the Longhorns reached the Final Four, South Carolina is the NCAA’s defending champion. South Carolina has reached the Final Four in five straight tournaments, and the Gamecocks’ 2022 and 2024 championships complement the title they won in 2017 with head coach Dawn Staley.

Texas and South Carolina have played three times already this season. The two teams split their regular-season series before South Carolina recorded a 64-45 win in the Southeastern Conference championship game on March 9.

Texas Longhorns forward Madison Booker drives around the South Carolina Gamecocks defense during a game at Moody Center on Feb. 9. Texas won the game 66-62.

What channel is Texas vs South Carolina?

TV Channel: ESPN

Streaming: Fubo, Sling

Radio: 98.1 FM

WATCH TEXAS WOMEN’S HOOPS HERE

What time does Texas women’s basketball play?

Date: April 4

Time: 6 p.m. CT

Location: Amalie Arena, Tampa, Fla.

How did Texas get here?

What has Texas been up to since the SEC championship game? After mostly coasting by William & Mary and Illinois during the first few days of the NCAA Tournament, Texas recorded 67-59 and 58-47 wins over Tennessee and TCU in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight rounds.

Averaging 18.8 points, Booker has been UT’s leading scorer in each of its tournament games. But the name of the game for Texas is defense and the Longhorns are allowing 53.8 points per game in the NCAA Tournament. Among the Final Four qualifiers, that defensive effort was bested by UConn (53.5). South Carolina and UCLA are respectively allowing 54.5 and 60 points per game in the tournament.

South Carolina Gamecocks forward Chloe Kitts celebrates a play at Legacy Arena in Birmingham, Ala., on March 30. The Gamecocks won the game against Duke and advanced to the Final Four.

How did South Carolina get here?

What has South Carolina been up to since the SEC championship game? After opening its NCAA Tournament run with a 108-48 rout of Tennessee Tech, the Gamecocks have been challenged. South Carolina’s second, third and fourth-round games were all won by an average of 6.3 points.

South Carolina faced fourth-quarter deficits in its Sweet 16 and Elite Eight contests against Maryland and Duke, but the Gamecocks won both of those games by four points. South Carolina has had a different leading scorer — Joyce Edwards (22 points vs. Tennessee Tech), Bree Hall (11 points vs. Indiana), MiLaysia Fulwiley (23 points vs. Maryland) and Chloe Kitts (14 points vs. Duke) — in all four of its tournament games.

All eyes on Booker, Hall

How Texas fares against South Carolina may come down to how Booker plays on offense against a South Carolina team that will likely throw Hall at her defensively. Booker has scored 37 points against South Carolina this season, but 20 of those points came in the 66-62 win that Texas recorded in Austin. Over those three games, Booker has shot 14-for-54 from the floor and that .259 shooting percentage is over 200 points below the first-team All-American’s season-long mark.

“She’s a great defender. Kind of shocked she wasn’t on the all-conference defensive team or anything like that,” Booker said. “Long, lean, athletic. She definitely makes you think on the court as an offensive player.”

The six-foot Hall has accumulated just 24 steals and eight blocks this season, and she was left off the SEC’s all-defensive team. South Carolina coach Dawn Staley, though, said she was among the five best defenders that she’s ever coached.

“She’s definitely underrated as a defender,” Staley said. “I think our game sometimes looks at stats. She’s not one that’s going to steal the ball. She’s one that’s going to get your top scorer shooting at an inefficient clip and that’s her claim to fame.”