Former Controversial Texas Longhorns Star Reflects on Time in Austin

After a less-than-ideal year with the Texas Longhorns, Sedona Prince pursued other options following the 2018-2019 season, eventually leading her to TCU.

TCU center Sedona Prince (13) speaks to the media during a press conference ahead of the Regional Finals of the NCAA Women's Tournament in Birmingham, Alabama, March 30, 2025. TCU will face the Texas Longhorns in the Elite Eight on Monday night. | Sara Diggins/American-Statesman / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

In 2018 when she was a senior in high school, Liberty Hill's Sedona Prince committed to play basketball for the Texas Longhorns and then-head coach Karen Aston. Though she would never get to play in the Burnt Orange due to a lower right-leg fracture that would require two surgeries, she's taken time to reflect and is ultimately grateful for the time she spent in Austin.

Now, she will face her former team for the first time in the Elite Eight on Monday.

Prince has also dealt with many off-court issues since 2019 and is in her sixth season of college basketball. En route to TCU, she played at Oregon for three years before the Horned Frogs, where she is in her second year.

Prince's broken leg ultimately required two surgeries, the second one of which caused a life-threatening infection. In 2021, she told ESPN that medical care and "feeling unsafe" were why she left Texas, which she had previously declared "her dream school."

Mar 28, 2021; San Antonio, Texas, USA; Oregon Ducks forward Sedona Prince (32) shoots against Louisville Cardinals forward Elizabeth Dixon (22) in the fourth quarter in the Sweet Sixteen of the 2021 Women's NCAA Tournament at Alamodome. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

"I don't think I really realized how much it affected me until probably this year, to be honest," Prince said before the Elite Eight matchup between TCU and Texas. "Texas was my dream school when I grew up, it was my family. And I don't really want those details in it, because it was a long time ago. But it was a very, very difficult year for me as a young woman, as a young player, to be thinking I was growing family and to be what I was. I held a lot in my heart, my soul. I didn't know that I was turned around for a long time."

"And for a long time, I didn't really realize how much trauma can affect you until, you know, all of a sudden you're hitting it on the wall, and then it's like, 'Oh, man, this has been playing out for a very long time.' So, you know, the staff isn't there, but I have so much respect for (Coach Schaefer) and what he's done for the program, I think he's an amazing coach, and I have no hard feelings. I've healed from it. It shaped me into the right person. I'm so grateful, I truly am, for that year, and where it led me to go to Oregon, you know, to leave college and to come here. And it's there's nothing else that could have led me here and taught me so many valuable lessons and shaped me into who I am today, without going through those atrocities that I went through."

Prince, while controversial, has been instrumental in bringing equality to women's basketball. In 2022, her TikTok showing the weight room at the Sweet 16 went viral. Now, at TCU, she averages 17.6 points per game, 9.4 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game.

Her matchup with her former team comes with a trip to the Final Four on the line. Texas and TCU will face off on ESPN at 6 p.m. Monday from Birmingham.