Gail Goestenkors has finished her first season at UT. For her, it was Gail Goestenkors-Light. So what does an early tournament exit mean for the coach who is one of the best in her sport and enjoyed tremendous tournament success in her previous 13 years at Duke?

First of all, it's a hell of a start for a Texas program that missed the NCAAs the past two years. Let's remember those teams had Tiffany Jackson, a Texas hall-of-famer to be sure. Once Coach G can recruit her players to play her style of ball, the Horns will be in better shape than they already are.

Erneisha Bailey is the lone departure and a pretty tough loss, but Brittainey Raven and Carla Cortijo will be back and leading a strong backcourt. Kat Nash and Rachel Rentschler are great shotoers who need to step up their offensive production and make Texas a legitimate deep ball threat. Up front, Ashley Lindsey needs to stay out of foul trouble and continue to be a physical rebounding presence, but at the same time also should increase her scoring contributions much in the same way that Damion James stepped up this year in filling Kevin Durant's void.

So things are looking up for a Texas team that proved late in the season that it could hang in the best conference for women's basketball. Let's see some new young talent trickle in and step up and the glory days of Jody Conradt's tenure could be back in full swing before the decade is up.