Sarah Graves is having a bit of a moment.
The 22-year-old began her collegiate career with the Texas Longhorns as a walk-on, a detail that’s been rehashed online more than once since her first season with the team back in 2022. But it’s one that’s worth repeating, because it’s what makes her 2025-26 season so special.
Graves played a grand total of one minute that first season, the impetus for Coach Vic Schaefer’s push to get her an extra year of eligibility. The coach most recently mentioned the possiblity while speaking to reporters ahead of the team’s game against Michigan. She’s on board, Graves told The IX Sports Thursday in Phoenix. “It’s in the works,” she explained, without offering much detail. “It’s an ongoing process.”
That process will come to a halt 48 hours after the Longhorns’ last game in Phoenix. That gives Schaefer a pretty tight timeline: a decision will have to be made by Sunday or Tuesday.
Until then, Graves is focused on the task at hand: facing the UCLA Bruins Friday night. The game is a necessary win if the Longhorns hope to win their first NCAA Championship under Schaefer’s tenure.
How the Longhorns made it back to the Final Four
The team’s nonconference schedule was tough, Schaefer told reporters Thursday — and throughout the regular season. The team also battled injuries that could have shaken their resolve, but they managed to stay undefeated throughout the regular season until their first loss to LSU in January.
This year’s locker room has been one of a kind, he also said. “Winning is really hard,” he explained. “People think it’s easy ’til it isn’t. When it … isn’t, that’s when people lose their jobs.”
All four teams at the Final Four are extremely talented, Schaefer added, and being back to back with his squad is a unique experience. Though she may not have the immediate name recognition that some of her teammates do, Graves is proving she’s a piece of that puzzle.
Her three-pointer in the final minute of the game against the Wolverines prompted near-hysteria from the crowd, who had already loudly chanted, “put Sarah in.” The game could have be her last in orange — or it might not, depending on what happens in Arizona.
“She pours so much into us every day,” teammate Rori Harmon, whose been on the roster alongside Graves every step of the way, told reporters after the game. “I’ve been here with Sarah for quite some time, so I truly feel that from the bottom of my heart, how excited I get and our teammates get for her, because she’s always just giving and giving and never expects anything. She’s a great leader, she’s a great culture kid. She does so much for us, so when she goes out there and she has a great attitude every time she gets into the game and she does something like that? We see it in practice. Not a lot of people see that, but that turnaround fade in the paint that she had is a great shot to have.”
Texas’ journey back to the Final Four may have come as a surprise to a lot of people, Graves explained, and she’s not even sure it’s something she would have expected in 2022. “I don’t think anyone, when I came here … I didn’t think we’re going to make it to the Final Four back to back,” she admitted. “But there’s evidence, there’s hard work behind it, so it makes sense to me.”
The attention she’s getting of late is “cool” and something she’s using to illustrate to her freshman teammates that the hard work is worth it. “As I told the freshman at the beginning of the year, just because the last team made it doesn’t mean we’re going to.”
She also said, “So you have to go through all the suffering and sacrifice and hard parts where you want to quit and do it all over again. So to get back to the success and the peak of basketball is really cool and gratifying.”
Graves sees the world through multiple lenses
Graves herself isn’t too bothered by the idea she might not see more time on the court, but also clear that she’d love to. “I mean, everything is cool because I got to grow up here as an 18-year-old freshman that had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and getting to be passionate about basketball, passionate about school, and applying that to other people has meant everything to me,” she explained.
“I feel like the coaches are like my second parents,” she added.
Basketball has been a big part of Graves’ life the last four years, but the business major is also making strides academically. She’s the only student on the Texas Business of Sport Institute Advisory Board — a group that also includes Kevin Durant and Chris Bosh — and sees a lot overlap between her on and off court activities.
“It’s 100% crossover,” Graves said. “It’s how I look at everything. It’s not even cliche to say that. It’s genuinely how you lead in sports.”
She continued, “It’s how you lead in business and building relationships, and everything is very intertwined.”
Whatever Graves’ future holds, be it basketball outside of the collegiate system, moving into the professional business sphere, or perhaps opportunity to run it back with the Longhorns one more year, it’s become clear that she’s made an impact with the team she’s spent so many years with. In a lot of ways, that’s what matters the most.
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