AUSTIN — Texas Longhorns star point guard Rori Harmon has been the rock of the Texas team since she arrived on campus in 2021. Now a senior, Harmon is just one of two in the storied Texas program to reach the milestone of 1,000 points and 600 assists. She dished out her 600th assist in the team’s 90-56 win over Arkansas on Sunday.

After missing the majority of last season with a torn ACL she suffered in practice, Harmon has now surpassed both of those milestones this season. Against the Razorbacks, she had six assists and needs just four more to be second all-time in assists for Texas.

In front of the seventh-largest women’s basketball crowd in Moody Center history with over 8,700 people in attendance, Texas won by a large margin, but head coach Vic Schaefer was not statisfied with his team’s performance.

“First, congratulations to Rori, 600 assists. That’s a lot of assists, lots of passing,” Schaefer said. “We didn’t play very good, to be honest with you. I’m kicking myself. I took it a little easy on them on Friday, we just don’t handle easy well. And you know, we got in late, around two am. That’s just an excuse, really, at the end of the day. But you know, we really struggled today with certain things and again, I wear that. I’ve got to coach better and teach better, and we got to play better. But I just think there’s a standard that we all try to live up to, and I think we’re all trying to chase perfection, whether that’s attainable or not, it’s probably not, but still, we’re going to chase it.”

Though Harmon was far from perfect against Arkansas, she still reached a career milestone. She was 5-11 from the field and finished with 12 points, making both free throws she attempted, but most importantly, shared the ball well.

Harmon gave all credit to her teammates, as assists are a statistic that requires multiple people to be involved.

“It feels great to be a part of those list of names and it’s a great honor, but you can’t do it by yourself,” Harmon said. “Obviously, Coach Schaefer puts us in great situations. And my teammates are obviously, in my mind, the best teammates you can have. And truly, like I said, you really can’t do it by yourself, so I really need to thank everybody else around me who have put me in those great positions.”

Texas is now 14-1 overall and 2-0 in conference play.

Harmon and her teammates will return to the Moody Center on Thursday to take on the No. 19 Alabama Crimson Tide. The game will tip off at 7:00 PM and be aired on SEC Network Plus.

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AUSTIN – We’re tracking a massive winter storm and much of the United States will be dealing with temperatures well below average this week. Sunday morning started with temperatures in the 70s, but will quickly drop.

For Central Texas, that cold front is filtering through, and as it does, it could bring a few sprinkles. You may start to see less cloud cover throughout the day. The temperatures will continue to fall on Sunday night to around 30 degrees.

Monday

Winter is coming. The winds will be strong, coming in from the north and the temperatures will be below freezing in the 20s and 30s across the area. 

The high for Monday will be in the 40s. It will feel much colder with the winds, it will feel like it is in the teens.

Remember to bundle up and remember your Four P’s: People, Pets, Plants, Pipes.

You could see a few sprinkles as the cold front swings through, but then there will be clear conditions.

With the clear skies overnight, it will allow those temperatures to fall quickly.

Wednesday-Friday

We are keeping a very close eye on the chance of some wintry precipitation. It is still a few days out. There could be some in the northern area of our viewing area, near San Saba.

This is not a repeat of 2021, because there are not going to be days and days of snow. Temperatures will be getting above freezing in the afternoons, but make sure you stay prepared and get ready because the arctic air is on its way.

It looks like it could most likely be Wednesday into Thursday or Thursday into early Friday when those temperatures will be freezing and below.

Out on the Austin speaking circuit, I often rely on stock speeches.

One audience favorite: “20,000 years of Austin history in 20 minutes.”

The title, at least, never fails to generate a laugh.

And those 20 minutes are usually followed by 40 minutes of sharp questions.

For the next few “From the Archives” columns, I thought it would be challenging to adapt that speech, built around 10 decisive moments in Austin history. After this introductory column, I’ll roll out each decisive moment, supported by material from our archives, over the course of 10 weeks.

10 decisive moments in Austin history

• The arrival of humans (20,000 years ago): Mike Collins and other archeological experts have dated prehistorical human activity in Central Texas to 20,000 years ago by interpreting artifacts recovered from the Gault Site north of Austin. Why did these Paleo-Indians, forebears of the Native Americans such as the Tonkawa, choose this area? The same reason others have done so since then: abundant food, water, shelter and materials that make life meaningful. Included at the Gault Site, for instance, are tiny art objects.
• The arrival of Europeans and Africans (500 years ago): Spaniard Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and an Arabic-speaking African named Esteban de Dorantes (Estevanico) were among 80 men shipwrecked on the Texas Gulf Coast. Four of them survived and spent the next years exploring the interior. Unlike what was accomplished in South Texas, the Spanish did not make a lasting impact on this part of Central Texas, although they briefly planted missions in the Austin area in 1730. Native Americans, including the Austin-area Tonkawa, still controlled most of the land that the Spanish, French, Mexicans and, later, Americans claimed in Texas until the mid-19th century.

• The arrival of Americans (200 years ago): Led by Stephen F. Austin, American colonists poured into Texas during the 1820s. Many brought along enslaved African Americans, although a few free Black families also immigrated. The colonists settled mainly in the Colorado and Brazos river basins. During the 1830s, they allied with a fair number of Tejanos in rebellion against the central government of Mexico, which led to Texas independence in 1836. Very soon after that, German, Czech and other immigrants took advantage of the newly available land as Native Americans were pushed to the west and north.
• Austin chosen as Republic of Texas capital (1839): A wilderness hamlet formerly named Waterloo, planted on a bluff above the Colorado River, Austin made an unlikely site for a national, much less a purportedly imperial capital. It lay deep within Native American territory without easy links to existing Texas population centers. Yet newcomers embraced its natural beauty, located on rolling prairies and clear creeks east of the “Colorado Mountains.” The urban grid laid out in 1839 still serves the needs of Central Austin nimbly today.
• Arrival of emancipation and railroads (1860-70s): Austin was not a center of slave trade, or for that matter, any trade, unlike Houston or Galveston, but more than 20% of its population was African American when the the Civil War began in 1861. After Texans learned of emancipation on June 19, 1865, many former enslaved people founded “freedom colonies” of independent African American landowners. Their descendants often are counted among the civil rights leaders of the 20th century. On Christmas Day in 1871, the railroad arrived from Houston, revolutionizing the local economy, culture and social life. Without railroads, Austin would not have become a city.

• The University of Texas founded (1883): Although only a few male students matriculated when classes began in temporary quarters, UT quickly became the second defining institution in Austin after government — itself to be represented by the city’s largest building in 1888, the domed Texas Capitol. Its faculty laid the intellectual foundation for the city’s future in science, engineering, technology, law, business, literature, music, movies and the arts. Just as promised in the Texas constitution, UT has become a global force in education, now complemented by a cluster of area colleges and universities.
• The Austin Dam collapses (1900): When the dam across the Colorado River, completed in 1893 out of giant granite blocks, collapsed during one of the city’s devastating floods, it changed the intended course of Austin development. Instead of a manufacturing and distribution center supported by cheap electricity, Austin became the “home city” or “city of homes,” as defined by the leafy neighborhoods — segregated from the 1920s to the 1960s — that surround downtown and what long remained its two major economic engines — government and the university.
• The federal government intervenes (1900s): Few people today recognize the huge impact made by several waves of federal intervention in the city. The feds planted military bases and training camps around Austin during the world wars. They funneled relief money through the capital city during the Great Depression, when federal funding helped pay for bridges, streets, state structures and the UT Tower, along with the Highland Lakes dams that provided crucial protection from the worst floods, while supplying water and electricity as well as recreational opportunities. Then after World War II, the feds turned over to UT a closed magnesium plant north of town that became a research center and the locus of Austin’s high tech boom.
• A distinctive Austin culture flourishes (1960s-2000s): While real wealth arrived for the first time with the tech boom, the city’s creative culture thrived, sequentially, in the fields of music, moviemaking, traditional arts, digital arts and innovative dining. Meanwhile, the political culture gelled during the 1970s as the new antiwar, youth, green, gay, Chicano and women’s movements joined the traditional labor and civil rights groups in a progressive coalition that survives, if uneasily, to this day.
• Austin character matures (now): Cultures were not the only things that evolved. Austin’s collective character, as observed during daily reporting on the scene, can be described as open (to difference, to change, to stasis), smart (not just in the bookish sense), kind (not merely its quickly multiplying nonprofits), fun (the party never stops) and alert (to the world as well as the community). This was not always the case and is still not always the case today. Yet it makes Austin more than just another big city.