“We Belong in the SEC”: Madison Booker Breaks Down Texas’s Historic Dismantling of South Carolina
In a postgame interview with WNBA legend and two-time Olympic gold medalist Lisa Leslie, Texas Longhorns forward Madison Booker sat down to reflect on one of the most dominant performances in SEC Tournament championship history — a 78-61 dismantling of three-time defending champion South Carolina that announced, in the loudest possible terms, that the Texas program has fully arrived in the Southeastern Conference.
Leslie, whose own playing legacy as one of the most decorated players in women’s basketball history gave the conversation immediate gravitas, congratulated Booker on being named SEC Tournament MVP — an honor Booker earned by averaging a staggering 20 points per game on 61.4% shooting across three tournament wins. For a player already considered one of the nation’s premier forwards, the performance validated something the Texas program has been building toward since joining the SEC just two years ago.
“We belong in the SEC,” Booker told Leslie, her voice carrying the quiet confidence of someone who had just backed up every word with action. “We’re here to play and we’re here to win.”
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That declaration was not hollow. It was a direct response to two years of narrative — that Texas, despite its talent, had not yet proven it could win the conference’s signature moment against the program that had owned it. Vic Schaefer had never beaten Dawn Staley in the postseason, going 0-8 in that matchup including losses in the 2017 National Championship game and the 2025 Final Four. Sunday changed all of that in the most emphatic fashion imaginable.
When Leslie pressed Booker on what made Texas so dominant against South Carolina, the Tournament MVP broke it down with striking clarity. The game plan, she explained, was executed from the opening tip with a level of precision and aggression that gave South Carolina no time to find its footing. South Carolina turned the ball over on five of its first six possessions, and the only shot attempt was an airball. Texas converted the turnovers into 10 points and made its first seven shot attempts, taking a 14-0 lead just 3:13 into the game.
Booker told Leslie that the mentality going in was simple: attack the paint, stay composed, and never let South Carolina establish the defensive identity that has made them a dynasty. The Longhorns scored 51 percent of their points from inside the paint and shot 54 percent from the field as a team — numbers that reflected not just talent but a deliberate tactical approach to neutralizing the Gamecocks’ length and physicality by attacking before they could set up.
What made the performance particularly remarkable, and what Booker acknowledged to Leslie with visible pride, was its collective nature. Justice Carlton scored 13 of her 15 points in the first half, and Breya Cunningham contributed all eight of her points before halftime. The role players carried the early load, which meant South Carolina could not key on any single threat — and by the time Booker took over in the second half, the game was already decided in tone if not yet in scoreline.
Booker scored 14 of her 18 points in the second half on 6-of-11 shooting, a reminder that even on a night when her teammates led the way early, she was the constant thread running through everything Texas did offensively.
When Leslie asked about what this championship means for the program and its identity in the SEC, Booker’s answer pointed forward as much as it celebrated the present. Texas has now won a regular season or conference tournament championship in each of the last five seasons — a streak of sustained excellence that predates their SEC membership and has only accelerated since joining the conference.
For South Carolina, Dawn Staley drew on history after the loss, telling her team that the last time they lost in a similar situation, they went on to win the national championship — a message that frames the defeat not as a collapse but as a reset. Both programs are expected to receive one seeds in the NCAA Tournament, setting up the possibility of yet another meeting on the sport’s biggest stage.
But in this moment, speaking with one of women’s basketball’s all-time greats, Madison Booker was not thinking about what comes next. She was savoring what just happened — a championship performance that made the statement Texas had been waiting two years to deliver.
They belong. She proved it.
Presented by TurboTax | Interview with Lisa Leslie
