The man whose jacket never stays on for long. Texas head coach Vic Schaefer is officially the SEC Coach of the Year after leading the Longhorns to the regular-season title in their first season in the conference.
In his fifth season with the Horns, Schaefer led Texas to a 29-2 overall record, a No. 2-seed in the SEC Women's Basketball Tournament, and the No. 1 ranking in the country. Now, as the Longhorns set their sights on the conference tournament, Schaefer gets to celebrate for a little longer after earning the SEC award.
This year, Schaefer coached the Longhorns to ranked victories over West Virginia, Oklahoma, Alabama, South Carolina, Kentucky, LSU, Maryland, Tennessee, and Vanderbilt while only losing two games versus then-No. 10 Notre Dame and then-No. 2 South Carolina.
Over the previous four seasons, Schaefer took the Longhorns to four consecutive NCAA Tournaments and led them all the way to the Elite Eight on three of their four postseason runs.
Before coaching at Texas, Schaefer was the head coach of the Mississippi State Bulldogs for eight seasons and took the team to the NCAA Championship games in 2017 and 2018, where they lost to the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, in that order.
This season, when Texas visited Mississippi State, Schaefer and the Longhorns pulled off a 68-64 victory over his former team. To cap off the regular season, the Horns won in dominant fashion with a 72-46 victory over the Florida Gators on Schaefer's birthday.
The SEC Coach of the Year and his team will take on the conference tournament as the No. 2 seed and will tip off their first postseason game at 5 p.m. PT on Friday, March 7.