Texas women’s basketball salutes the seniors with statement win over Georgia

Texas women's basketball returned to the Moody Center to take on the Mississippi State Bulldogs, honoring its five seniors on Senior Night. It was pretty cool to see the transformation after the San Antonio Spurs took on the Sacramento Kings in Austin last night. It amazes me that there's a crew that can take down and set up a court in the time they do.

Getting out to a 24-8 lead after the first quarter is one way to quickly settle down the Bulldogs. The Longhorns would go on to win the game 92-42 as they continue preparing for the SEC Conference Tournament, which is in a couple of weeks. They have some stuff to keep working on, but they got the win on Senior Night, and that's what really matters today.

Let's take a look at four takeaways from today's game for Texas:

1. Great start out of the gate against the Bulldogs

It would have been cool to see the Bulldogs' mascot sit down after the Longhorns' start. Madison Booker and Rori Harmon led the way with 9 points in the first quarter. The Longhorns led 24-8 after the first quarter in one of their better quality starts during conference play.

That's the start the Longhorns need if they want to have a nice, deep run in the SEC Conference tournament coming up. Texas has two more matchups to fine-tune its game.

2. Holding the Bulldogs to 18 points in first half of the game

It was great watching the Longhorns hold the Bulldogs to 18 points in the first half. While they aren't elite like the LSU Tigers or the Vanderbilt Commodores, that's great preparation for the defense, as they only have two more games before the big SEC tournament. A good run in the tournament should give the Longhorns a No. 1 seed and allow them to host some postseason games at the Moody Center—great defensive effort from the Longhorns this afternoon.

3. Madison Booker went off again

Madison Booker had another signature game this afternoon. What really capped it off was the amazing buzzer-beater she had heading into halftime. I'm so glad she decided to join the Longhorns for her college basketball career.

She really fits in with Vic Schaefer's coaching strategy. She's also become somewhat of a recruiter during the offseason with some of the recent commitments. When Harmon leaves the program after this season, Booker is going to be the official leader of this team.

4. I was kind of surprised that Schaefer didn't start all the seniors

When I was at Abilene Christian, one of the things that the coaching staff would do on Senior Day was start all the seniors in the starting lineup. While I'm not the coach of the Longhorns and Schaefer is the boss, I thought it would have been cool to honor the seniors as a group, even if it meant subbing them out after four minutes.

However, the seniors received a nice sendoff after the game as the Longhorns honored them in a ceremony. Texas will play Georgia in its final home game of the regular season.