Catch up with Sooner hoops on the eve of two big games for two teams with real promise
If you’re entirely up to date on Sooner basketball, men’s and women’s, congratulations, you’re ahead of me.
If you’re not, well, lucky for both of us, between now and late, late Monday night, we’re going to learn plenty about both. Also lucky for us, each squad appears interesting and capable, perhaps one more than the other.
Thus far, each has played once, each has looked good, mostly, and each coach almost certainly believes this to be their best team to date since arriving in Norman together, Porter Moser succeeding Lon Kruger and Jennie Baranczyk succeeding Sherri Coale.
Start with the women, who appear positioned to go further this season than last, even as last year’s squad won 27 games, went 11-5 in the SEC, reaching the Sweet 16 for the first time since Baranczyk came aboard and for the first time, period, since 2013.
Ready, go.
Though we’re still waiting on the first in-season poll, the Oklahoma women began and remain No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 and No. 7 in the coaches’ poll.
Never have they been ranked so high to begin a season under Baranczyk and never have they been ranked so high at all since the ’08–’09 season, Courtney and Ashley Paris’ senior year, when they went 32-5, 15-1 in the Big 12, finishing the season in the program’s second Final Four.
The Sooners are getting that kind of respect in part because they’ve returned three of their best four players — senior center Raegan Beers, senior guard Payton Verhulst and junior forward Sahara Williams from a team that went deep in the NCAA tournament — but also because the No. 1 national recruit from a year ago, Aaliyah Chavez, is in the fold.
Playing Belmont inside Lloyd Noble Center on Monday, OU did not impress through three quarters before turning a slim 58-54 edge into an 87-64 victory.
Still, the performance may bode well.
Beers finished with 29 points on 13-of-17 shooting and 10 rebounds, while Chavez’s 16 points came on just 5-of-18 shooting despite the vast majority of her looks being good ones. Though off-target throughout, the ballyhooed freshman got pretty much every shot she wanted when she wanted it.
The Sooners also hit a horrific 3 of 23 from 3-point land, a figure they’re not likely to repeat.
They’re back on the court Monday for a game that doesn’t begin until 9:30 p.m., yet is entirely worth watching, when they take on No. 3 UCLA inside Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center.
The Bruins finished last season with a national semifinal loss to eventual national champion Connecticut, the same team to eliminate OU in the Sweet 16.
You heard it here first …
The X-factor will be Verhulst’s 3-point shooting.
She has the quickest release in the nation, and when she’s on she can score 9 or 12 points in 90 seconds.
A year ago, she shot 35.2 percent from distance, 32.5 percent against SEC foes.
Against Belmont, she netted 11 points, dished three assists and grabbed a whopping nine rebounds, yet finished just 1 of 5 from beyond the arc.
If Beers can be Beers and if Chavez can be terrific without swallowing up Verhulst, the Sooners might become a machine.
Maybe.
The men?
You can watch them tomorrow night, Saturday, 9:30 p.m., at No. 21 Gonzaga.
The Sooners are unranked after going 20-14 (6-12 SEC) last season, falling to Connecticut in the NCAA tournament’s first round.
You read that right, they reached the tournament despite finishing 13th in the conference standings, winning just a third of their league games.
Moser, who may still be one flop season away from losing the job last season’s tourney appearance saved — unless soon-retiring athletic director Joe Castiglione doesn’t need the headache on his way out the door — has again raided the transfer portal and rebuilt the roster for a fifth straight offseason.
Here’s a list of transfers you’re bound to hear about throughout the season: Xzavier Brown (Saint Joseph’s), Tae Davis (Notre Dame), Nijel Pack (Miami), Derrion Reid (Alabama).
Brown, a point guard, was St. Joe’s best player last season, averaging 17.6 points and 4.3 assists. His stepfather, Justin Scott, is in his first year as a Sooner assistant.
Reid was a five-star prospect who spent his true freshman season at Alabama last year before injuries limited him to 13 game appearances.
The Sooners claimed exhibition victories over both Texas Tech and Wisconsin, the preseason Nos. 10 and 24 teams in the nation, and began the regular season Monday with a crazy 102-66 victory over Saint Francis.
How can a 36-point victory be crazy?
Would you believe the Red Flash — that’s what they call them at Saint Francis — actually led the Sooners 49-45 in the second half?
Only for OU to go on a 57-17 run over the contest’s final 18:21, Kuol Atak, a 6-foot-9 redshirt freshman, playing the catalyst.
Atak finished with a team-high 18 points, all in the second half, hitting 7 of 11 shots and 4 of 8 from 3-point land, finishing plus-32 over just 13 minutes of post-intermission playing time.
Mo Wague, in the post, one of two Sooners you may recall from last season, added 16 points and 10 rebounds. Dayton Forsythe, the other, added six points, a rebound and an assist.
Yet another name you’re bound to get familiar with, Jeff Nwankyo, a Putnam City North product who appeared ready to play a role last year before a torn Achilles stole his season, was the first Sooner off the bench and finished with a strong eight points, nine rebounds and five assists over 23 minutes on the court.
The Sooners look like an exciting, explosive team, but also a very new team, which is par for the course since Moser arrived.
The X-factor?
I don’t know how they do it because they’ve yet to do it under Moser, but they’ve got to find a way to be tougher through the grind of the conference season; which is presumably harder when your players have played only a collection of games together rather than seasons together.
Each of Moser’s campaigns, pre-conference promise has given way to in-conference failure, and the program’s going nowhere until it figures it out, a first-round NCAA exit no sign of great success.
So there’s that.
And on a day OU isn’t playing football, you can watch Moser’s squad instead, late Saturday night.
It’s that time of year, you know, the overlap, gridiron and hoops.
Good times.
Enjoy.