Texas women’s basketball faces Georgia in regular-season home finale

Texas women’s basketball is in for a late night.

Thursday night at Moody Center, Texas is set to host Georgia in a matchup between the No. 4 and No. 23 teams in the Associated Press poll. That game, however, won’t tip off until 9 p.m. because of its placement on the SEC Network schedule. This will be just the third post-8 p.m. tip at home for Texas in the past two decades, and its 2025 game against William & Mary and 2023 showdown with East Carolina were in the NCAA Tournament.

While unhappy with the late tip time — as well as an 11 a.m. start to Sunday’s game at Alabama — Schaefer conceded Wednesday that Georgia (21-7, 7-7) may be a more-aggrieved party than Texas (26-3, 11-3). The Georgia campus is in the Eastern time zone.

“I can’t imagine what Georgia is thinking there. That’s 10 o’clock at night, body-wise for them,” Schaefer scoffed.

Despite Thursday’s late start, Texas is still hoping to draw a crowd for its final home game of the regular season (Moody Center will likely be the site of first- and second-round games in the NCAA Tournament). If Texas sells 10,000 tickets to the Georgia game, Schaefer will donate $10,000 of his own money to the Neighborhood Longhorns Program. Several benefactors like local car dealers Nyle Maxwell and Chuck Nash and former UT player Eryn McMahan have also made pledges of their own to aid a program that described itself as “the premier educational outreach program for the University of Texas at Austin offering 2nd through 8th graders in Title I schools the opportunity to envision attending college through incentives and scholarships.”

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This is the fifth straight season that Texas has held a “10K for 10K” game. Back in 2022, Schaefer borrowed an idea from his time at Mississippi State as a way to drum up fan support. At the time, Texas games were lightly-attended and played in the cavernous Erwin Center. 

“I couldn’t even tell you (what our attendance was), it was a pretty low number,” fifth-year guard Rori Harmon recalled. Texas ranked 25th nationally with its average of 3,617 fans during Harmon’s freshman year.

Texas has hit its 10,000-fan goal for each of Schaefer’s “10K for 10K” games. According to UT, $150,000 was raised for the Neighborhood Longhorns Program during last season’s “10K for 10K game.” 

This week, Schaefer was asked about hosting a “10K for 10K game.” The fan support that he long clamored for is there since Texas currently ranks seventh nationally in average attendance and has drawn 10,000 fans for five of its home games. Why does Schaefer want to continue to give away his money?

“I love what the impact is that the Neighborhood Longhorns Program has in our community, and I think our supporters of this event do as well,” Schaefer said. “From what I understand, this has really benefited their ability to impact our community and the children of this community. … It’s an honor for us to have an opportunity to help this program.”

Earlier this season, the Georgia basketball program caught a stray as Schaefer bemoaned the job done by the SEC schedulers. During a viral rant following a 70-65 loss Jan. 11 at LSU, Schaefer complained that “LSU and South Carolina both played Georgia before they played me” while UT had to play then-No. 12 LSU before traveling to play then-No. 2 South Carolina.

More: Why Texas women’s basketball sneaked a new face into its starting 5 vs Mississippi State

On Wednesday, Schaefer was more effusive in his praise of Georgia. Schaefer promoted Katie Abrahamson-Henderson as a candidate for the conference’s coach of the year award, and he said the Bulldogs “have our complete attention and respect.”

“(The) team is playing at a really high level,” Schaefer analyzed. “They’ve been involved in so many great wins and some really close losses in our league, and they have multiple all-conference players.”

Georgia has beaten ranked Vanderbilt, Kentucky and Ole Miss teams this season, and the Bulldogs are closing in on their first NCAA Tournament berth since 2023. In its most-recent bracketology projections, ESPN lists Georgia as a No. 6 seed.