As Raegan Beers looks a whole lot like Courtney Paris, Sooner women's future appears blindingly bright
Though the 10th-ranked Oklahoma women trounced Virginia, a real team chosen to finish in the middle of the ACC pack, 95-51 inside Lloyd Noble Center Friday night, one player’s performance is too good a place not to begin.
Yet, to put that player in perspective, we must begin with another player.
We must begin with Courtney Paris.
Remember her?
For two seasons, Paris’ first two as it turned out, 2005-06 and 2006-07, she might have been the best player in the women’s game any of us has still ever seen.
Those seasons, in order, she averaged 21.9 points and 23.5 points, 15 rebounds and 15.9 rebounds, 3.3 blocks and 3.4 blocks, shooting 61.4 percent and 57 percent.
Her absolute greatest stat (or stats)?
If we can trust her Wikipedia page, she remains the only player in college basketball history, man or woman, to score 700 points, grab 500 rebounds and block 100 shots, a feat she accomplished her freshman season with totals of 788, 539 and 119.
Then, to prove it wasn’t a fluke, in three fewer games, she turned around and did it again her sophomore season with totals of 775, 526 and 111 and for doing it she earned first-team All-American honors a second straight season and was named national player of the year by everybody who names a national player of the year.
“I remember telling my mom,” Paris told me once for a story, “I think I can average 40 [points] and 20 [rebounds].”
Then, after a few minutes of an exhibition game against Oklahoma Christian, after grabbing every rebound but not touching the ball offensively, she’d completely changed her mind.
“I have 10 rebounds and people are cheering, and I’m just thinking, that’s all right, I’m going to be a rebounder,” she said. “I may not get the points, but I’m going to be a rebounder.”
Then, during a time out, she remembered Sherri Coale saying, “We did not bring big girl here not to get the ball inside,” and that was that.
Anyway, Paris’ first five games as a Sooner she scored 24 points, 19 points, 26 points, 19 points and 30 points against, in order, Wisconsin-Milwaukee, SMU, New Mexico, Connecticut and Iowa. She also, in order, grabbed 10, 20, 18, 6 and 14 rebounds, blocking 3, 5, 1, 3 and 5 shots for five-game averages of 23.6 points, 13.6 rebounds and 3.4 blocks.
Now, back to the present.
Though we can’t know what third-team All-American transfer center Raegan Bears might do against Oklahoma’s next three opponents — Western Carolina, Wichita State, UNLV — we know what Beers has done her first two games as a Sooner.
Opening night, against Southern, it was 21 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks, and Friday against the Cavaliers it was 26 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks for two-game averages of 23.5 points, 14 rebounds and two blocks.
But for the blocks, Beers is right there with Paris and, OF COURSE, it’s only two games, but what we can safely prognosticate is she’ll continue to get way more shot attempts than she got a year ago at Oregon State, where she canned 66.4 percent from the field, yet still had to settle for a 17.5 scoring average because Beaver coach Scott Rueck’s offense only created an average 10.7 attempts for her.
Through two games under Sooner coach Jennie Baranczyk, Beers has attempted 27 shots, made 19 of them, including her first 3-pointer since her freshman season.
And even if she’s not the next Courtney Paris, she’s got to be the best Sooner since first-team All-American point guard Danielle Robinson in 2010.
Some other great stuff about this season’s Sooner women, some of which they may have been blurting out during Friday night’s SEC Network broadcast, some of which I’ll expand upon to make fuller points:
Beers had her double-double by halftime, netting 18 points and 11 boards, becoming the first Sooner to do that since Midwest City’s own Kaylon Williams against UTSA on Dec. 13, 2015, nabbing 10 and 10 the first 20 minutes.
Williams finished with 16 and 12 that game, perhaps losing court time to foul trouble — she finished with four — as was often the case, or maybe Coale just shut things down, her team on the way to an easy 80-41 victory.
The Sooners, if you haven’t heard, return 98.8 percent of their scoring from last season, which is unheard of, generally, and entirely unheard of in the NIL/transfer portal age, and none of that scoring includes what they picked up when Beers arrived for her junior year from Corvallis.
And, though stats like this are not kept, OU might be the first team to ever return seven players to have started at least 30 games: Nevaeh Tot (105), Lexy Keys (104), Liz Scott (62), Skylar Van (39), Beers (37), Sahara Williams (33), Payton Verhulst (32) … but maybe not; it might happen to the BYU men all the time, players coming back from missions and all that.
A year ago, OU scored 54 points in the paint against ORU, its season high. Friday it was 66, passing the Golden Eagle threshold the first couple minutes of the fourth quarter .
The Sooners also claimed their 44-point victory over the Cavs on a night they shot a semi-respectable 44 percent (40 of 90) from the floor, but a putrid 18.8 percent (6 of 32) from 3-point land after hitting an even worse 3 of 22 against Southern, despite sporting a roster of reasonably accurate career 3-point shooters: Tot (38.3 percent), Aubrey Joens (37.8) Verhulst (33.5), Keys (33.3), Vann (30.4).
So you know they’ll start making them some time.
Friday, though Vann, last seasons co-Big 12 player of the year, only finished with eight points, she grabbed 10 rebounds and dropped three assists.
Verhulst finished with 13 points, five assists and four rebounds, Williams added 14 points and four rebounds and of all people, Reyna Scott, the seventh of eight Sooners off the bench, turned her 11 minutes of court time into 10 points on 5 of 6 shooting, offering an array of Euro-steps on the way to the basket, appearing far more comfortable, fluid and confident than she ever appeared last season.
The Sooners’ absolutely ridiculously deep cup runneth over.
They finally have their star, and perhaps a superstar, in Beers. And even without her, they’d still be significantly better than a year ago when they caught fire in conference play, went 23-10 overall and 15-3 against Big 12 foes, reaching the NCAA tourney’s round of 32 before falling 75-68 to four-seed Indiana inside Assembly Hall in Bloomington.
The ceiling, for at least one Sooner team, is crazy high.
You should probably watch.