The sixth day of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament in San Antonio is in the book and the field is down to eight teams only a win from advancing to the Final Four. Here are some quick takeaways:

Tipping off
Defensive mood: Texas coach Vic Schaefer’s coaching career has been defined, in great part, by having teams that put a strong emphasis on playing solid defense. For eight seasons at Mississippi State were among the nation’s best on defense.

Before that, as Gary Blair’s top assistant at Texas A&M, Schaefer’s defensive game plans were crucial in the Aggies winning a national championship in 2011.

Schaefer displayed his defensive magic once again on Sunday, silencing high-scoring Maryland in the Longhorns’ 64-61 win at the Alamodome. Maryland entered the contest averaging 91.8 points per game for the season, including 99 through its first two tournament contests, and had scored 100 on seven occasions.

The 61 points were the fewest tallied by Maryland this year.

“To see them respond right now is really, again, it’s why we do what we do in coaching,” Schaefer said. “It’s all about your approach in my mind. I told them tonight, I mean, I think I used the phrase ‘nobody gives you a snowball’s chance in hell.’ That’s OK. It’s no problem. I don’t care what people think. If I worried about what people think, man, I’d really be all tied up. I couldn’t coach my way out of a wet paper bag. But that’s not me. I don’t care. The proof’s in the pudding.”

The proof came four years ago in Dallas when Schaefer’s Mississippi State squad stunned the basketball world, upending Connecticut 66-64 in overtime in the national semifinals. Connecticut had won 111 consecutive games, including defeating Mississippi State by 60 points in the Sweet 16 in 2016.

Mississippi State held Connecticut, which featured Katie Lou Samuelson, Kia Nurse, Gabby Williams and Napheesa Collier, 23 points under its scoring average.

“I’ve been in this situation before,” Schaefer said. “I’ve been in a game where everybody thought they were going to hang a hundred on me and it didn’t happen. Again, it’s a mindset. It’s an approach.”

Shooting stars
Dana Evans, Louisville: 29 points
Charli Collier, Texas: 16 points, 11 rebounds
Laeticia Amihere, South Carolina: 15 points, 7 rebounds
Kiana Williams, Stanford: 16 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists
Lotta-Maj Lahtinen, Georgia Tech: 20 points, 5 assists, 4 rebounds.
Elle Ruffridge, Missouri State: 18 points
Nyara Sabally, Oregon: 14 points, 7 rebounds, 3 blocks
Diamond Miller, Maryland: 21 points, 8 rebounds

By the numbers
15: Three-pointers made by Stanford during its 89-62 win over Missouri State. The Cardinal reached that total on 32 attempts (46.7 percent) and have made at least 13 3-pointers in each of their three tournament games.

22: Points scored by South Carolina off of 12 forced turnovers vs. Georgia Tech. The Gamecocks won 76-65 to advance to the Elite Eight for the fourth time in the past half-decade.

Quotable quotes
“I mean, basketball is a game of runs. They went on their run early. We came back and we shut them down. There were people out there saying they were going to hang a hundred on us. I think we took that personal. Every last one of us took that personal. We just went out there and we said we need to play defense. We know we can score, but we have to play defense and we have to get stops. I think that’s what we did.” — Texas guard Celeste Taylor

“I think for me watching these games, especially the past few days, especially when the field of competition gets smaller, the margin of like the win and loss, how close the games have been, the margin has been really, really small. And so to see the drastic differences when a team wins, when a team loses, I don’t want that experience of losing. Our team has really gone through a lot this season. Every team has. But I’ve only experienced our team and the adversity we’ve kind of gone through with being on the road and everything and how close we’ve gotten as a team. So I think for me just seeing that emotion, I feel really great about this win. I feel really great about the last win, the win before that. But now we have to turn over and focus on the next game.” — Stanford guard Anna Wilson

“I think our inexperience did show tonight. This is the first time that they’ve had the big lights on them for a lot of our team. I think that’s great exposure. You need that, you need those moments. I think this will fuel us going forward. Now, they’ve got that under their belt, had the first NCAA tournament, so they had a little bit of a taste of it. I think we’re going to want to go further.” — Maryland forward Chloe Bibby

“Every loss, any loss is hard. You’re exactly right. But my main takeaways are that this team has a really incredibly bright future. We have to put some work in in the offseason and we’ve got to get better individually so we can get into this game next year and have a different outcome. But I’m very proud of how we competed this year and how we got through this season with a pandemic, stayed safe and were able to complete it. So I love these kids. They’re hard workers. I can’t wait to start working with them again in the off-season and get going again.” — Georgia Tech and New Braunfels native Nell Fortner

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