2026-27 Women’s Basketball Thread

[TexTheHorn24]

Extremely excited for the season. I really think this season has a chance to be Vics best coaching job to date at Texas. These freshmen are elite. 

[LonghornFan4Ever]

[HonkEm]

On 9/24/2026 at 8:15 PM, TexTheHorn24 said:

Extremely excited for the season. I really think this season has a chance to be Vics best coaching job to date at Texas. These freshmen are elite. 

The freshmen may be elite. The coach? I'm not sold. If this team exceeds expectations, I suspect the primary reason will be the influx of elite young talent rather than some sudden evolution in Vic's coaching.

Every year I hear about Vic's coaching genius. Every year I end up more impressed by the roster than the coaching.

[Califashorn75]

Coach Vic is a top five coach in women's college basketball. He has been knocking on that championship door for the past ten years.  He has gotten really close, but no cigar yet. We have been relevant since he showed up at Texas. His teams are powerful defenders, play the best, and win their share. Two Final Fours the last two years. He has a bunch of elite eights! The guy is a great coach. Hopefully,  before he retires he can get to the mountain top. 

[HookemTexas]

16 hours ago, HonkEm said:

The freshmen may be elite. The coach? I'm not sold. If this team exceeds expectations, I suspect the primary reason will be the influx of elite young talent rather than some sudden evolution in Vic's coaching.

Every year I hear about Vic's coaching genius. Every year I end up more impressed by the roster than the coaching.

Disagree with you on this one.  Does Coach Vic frustrate me at times?  You bet.  But facts are that since Coach Conradt, Texas hasn’t been relevant in women’s bball until Coach Vic came.  

And Texas had some elite recruits before his time as well - but part of recruiting is on the coach.  Coach Vic has recruited more elite players than Texas has seen in prior years.  Karen Aston would pull maybe 1 or 2 in (Ariel Atkins) and got lucky that Brooke McCarty was good, but she wasn’t elite.

Part of the reason UConn and the other schools win is because they have way more talent than the rest of the league. I argue it’s a lot easier to win when your starting team is composed of the top 50 players in the country. During their Dynasty UConn had the top ranked recruit almost every year.  Now Texas is in the conversation to get those types of players where in previous years they wouldn’t even have a chance.

[HonkEm]

I don't think anyone is arguing that Vic hasn't elevated the program. Texas is unquestionably more relevant now than it was before he arrived, and he deserves credit for that.

Where I differ is in how much of the recent success I attribute to coaching versus talent acquisition. Recruiting absolutely counts as part of coaching, and Vic deserves credit for bringing in elite players. But once those players are on campus, I'm not convinced the on-court coaching consistently maximizes what Texas has.

To me, the last few years have often felt like elite talent overcoming limitations rather than elite coaching elevating talent. That's why when people call Vic a coaching genius, I'm skeptical. I see a program loaded with All-American caliber players, multiple top recruiting classes, and rosters that should be competing for Final Fours. The results have been very good, but not necessarily beyond what the talent level would suggest.

Maybe this freshman class changes my mind. If Texas takes a bigger step than expected, I'll gladly give Vic credit. But my first assumption won't be that a coach in his 60s suddenly became dramatically better. It'll be that adding another wave of elite talent raised the team's ceiling even further.

[HookemTexas]

1 hour ago, HonkEm said:

I don't think anyone is arguing that Vic hasn't elevated the program. Texas is unquestionably more relevant now than it was before he arrived, and he deserves credit for that.

Where I differ is in how much of the recent success I attribute to coaching versus talent acquisition. Recruiting absolutely counts as part of coaching, and Vic deserves credit for bringing in elite players. But once those players are on campus, I'm not convinced the on-court coaching consistently maximizes what Texas has.

To me, the last few years have often felt like elite talent overcoming limitations rather than elite coaching elevating talent. That's why when people call Vic a coaching genius, I'm skeptical. I see a program loaded with All-American caliber players, multiple top recruiting classes, and rosters that should be competing for Final Fours. The results have been very good, but not necessarily beyond what the talent level would suggest.

Maybe this freshman class changes my mind. If Texas takes a bigger step than expected, I'll gladly give Vic credit. But my first assumption won't be that a coach in his 60s suddenly became dramatically better. It'll be that adding another wave of elite talent raised the team's ceiling even further.

That's fair.  Where I would point to as a data point (as we don't know for sure since we're not behind the curtain) would be in Vic's rant after the embarrassing loss to Vandy last year when he was frustrated and said some things out loud.  One of which was - the players not following the game plan and what was drilled in practice in the game.  I can't remember his exact words, but it was something to the effect of - "many hours of work and they just ignored it

It can be argued that part of coaching is getting the players to execute and do what you want them to do.  I do feel like in today's NIL world that seems to be a lot harder than it used to be and many coaches are experiencing that.