Texas women's basketball has found its toughness, but will it travel? Horns will find out
In recent weeks, Texas forward Aaliyah Moore has worn a makeshift wristband during games.
The accessory for her left wrist is fashioned from athletic tape, and teammate Sarah Graves has used a marker to remind the junior of her goals. Moore got the idea after a recent conversation with her mother about "the power of manifesting things and affirmations, writing things down."
That's why Graves wrote "DBL DBL" on Moore's wristband during a 61-54 win over Kansas State on Sunday. Moore wants to average a double-double this season, and she inched toward that goal with a 10-point, 15-rebound effort against the Wildcats.
"A.F.M." is also written on the wristband as a nod to Moore's initials. Moore's middle name is Arie, however, so she'll let you figure out what associate head coach Elena Lovato says the "F" stands for.
Then there's "dawg."
When describing Moore's play in the paint against Baylor last week, point guard Madison Booker stated that her teammate was "a dawg down there." Graves had already spelled that word out on Moore's wristband, and Moore said, "It's perfect. Every game I need to go out there and be as tough as possible. Every team needs to be, you can say, 'afraid of me,' in a way because I'm a dawg."
It's all about toughness
But "dawg" isn't just a moniker for Moore. She says it's a mentality for the entire team. She even wrote "just me n my dawgss" as a caption for a recent thread of basketball-related photos on Instagram.
"Toughness is something that coach (Vic) Schafer has said we've struggled with in the past, so I told the team we need to take it upon ourselves to no matter what happens, he should never question our toughness out of everything," Moore said. "So the 'dawg' mentality is really just having that grit, that toughness to go out every day and work hard in practice and then in the games. It's being mentally and physically a dawg. No team's going to out-tough us at the end of the day."
But will that toughness travel?
Next up for Texas are trips to play TCU on Saturday and Houston next Wednesday. On Thursday, Schaefer didn't seem too concerned about UT's toughness. His biggest issue was the team's inconsistent play.
He noted that Texas scored 87 points against Oklahoma on Jan. 24 but struggled to defend the Sooners in a four-point loss. Texas made half of its shots in the third quarter of the Kansas State game, but a shooting slump and turnovers in the final frame kept the Longhorns from completely putting the Wildcats away.
"We're talking about right now with our team winning plays," Schaefer said. "From the time you wake up in the morning, what decision are you making to make winning plays? Because if you're not making winning plays, you're making losing decisions. We've got to make winning plays, and we've got to stop making losing plays. That's our focal point."
Texas, at No. 7, is the highest-ranked Big 12 team in this week's Associated Press poll. But the Longhorns (21-3, 8-3) are in fourth place in the conference standings, looking up at No. 24 Oklahoma (16-6, 10-1), No. 8 Kansas State (20-3. 9-2) and No. 22 West Virginia (20-2, 9-2).
If they're going to catch the Sooners, they will need more from Moore, who missed much of the 2022-23 season with a knee injury but is beginning to show why she was regarded as a top-10 prospect in the 2021 recruiting cycle. In the seven games since Schaefer inserted her into the starting lineup Jan. 13, Moore is averaging 15 points and 7.9 rebounds. She has shot at least .500 from the field in four of those games and had a 7-for-7 performance against Kansas on Jan. 16.
Moore also is playing though an ankle injury that she suffered in the third quarter of the Baylor game. She described the injury as a tweak and returned to play the entire fourth quarter. Three days later, she logged a 30-minute shift against Kansas State for a Texas team that is working forward DeYona Gaston (ankle) back into its rotation and has been without forward Khadija Faye (undisclosed illness) for the past two games.
"At the end of the day, I knew my team needed me out there," Moore said. "We had two off days (after the Kansas State game), which was really nice, so I actually feel a lot better now. Injuries happen; little tweaks happen. Like I said, dawg man, we've got that dawg mentality."
Saturday's game
No. 7 Texas (21-3, 8-3) at TCU (15-7, 2-9), 4 p.m., ESPN+, 103.1)
This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Aaliyah Moore, Texas basketball team installing a culture of toughness
