On opening night, Sooner women offer tremendous promise, if not great hoops
Author’s note: As sports editor of The Norman Transcript, I covered a ton of Oklahoma women’s basketball. From Phylesha Whaley to Stacey Dales to Courtney Paris, to Whitney Hand, to Danielle Robinson and to everybody who came after through the Sherri Coale era, when the program wasn’t quite as strong as the first half of her tenure, but still reaching the NCAA tournament until it wasn’t in ’19, ’20 and ’21.
Since leaving the paper as a full-timer, I’ve remained fortunate to cover a fair amount of coach Jennie Baranczyk’s first three seasons. Baranczyk’s Sooners are yet to go back to the Sweet 16, but they’ve been back to the tournament three straight seasons, claiming a pair of Big 12 regular season crowns along the way and this campaign, after picking up All-American transfer Raegan Beers and freshman Zya Vann, ex-Big 12 Player of the Year Skylar Vann’s younger sister, the Sooners find themselves ranked 10th in the preseason AP Top 25, having returned everybody of consequence, too. Monday, I was fortunate to be at Lloyd Noble Center for opening night of the season, a 76-44 victory over Southern, helping out my old paper.
If you’re looking for a good team to follow, follow this one and, though it’s not exactly a “column,” check this story out and you’ll be up to date with the squad.
On opening night of coach Jennie Baranczyk’s fourth Oklahoma women’s basketball season, the promise proved better than the delivery.
Though it came with a 76-44 victory, a number of things appeared not so pristine for the preseason 10th-ranked Sooners.
While falling well short of the century mark one might have expected, OU canned just 3 of 22 3-point attempts, turned the ball over 18 times and, more bothersome than both for their coach — “They beat us to way too many loose balls,” Baranczyk said — Southern too often out-hustled OU.
And still, the promise couldn’t have been more clear, beginning with 21 points and 14 rebounds from reigning third-team All-American and 6-foot-4 Oregon transfer Raegan Beers, all the way to the 11 other Sooners who played at least 6 minutes, none of it attributable to “garbage time” because that’s now how Baranczyk used her rotations.
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