Sooners nab huge win on a night they again prove how far away they remain
Author’s Note: Monday night, for Tuesday publication, I’ll once again dive into Sooner softball, for the season will already be six games old.
If you didn’t know, Oklahoma began play Thursday night at San Diego State where it came from behind to top Cal-State Northridge 7-2, before turning around and coming from behind to top San Diego State 11-6, a victory fueled by North Carolina transfer Isabela Emerling’s ninth-inning grand slam.
Taking a look at the lineup coach Patty Gasso started against the Aztecs and the names of just three returning starters pop: Ella Parker, Cydney Sanders, Kasidi Pickering.
It is, indeed, a new season.
PS: OU is now 3-0 in the softball season, having claimed its Friday opener, at Cal State-Fullerton, 8-0 in five innings over California Baptist. At 8 tonight, they play the Titans on their home field.
Now, on with the show.
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Today’s topic is Sooner women’s basketball, which Thursday night might have played its two worst quarters of the season at Ole Miss and certainly one of its two or three ugliest games of the season, and yet, you guessed it, they won.
I watched it wondering how I was going to write about it, at one point throwing pen and steno pad onto my coffee table and, offended by the horrible basketball in front of me, considered turning it off, thereby forfeiting the chance to write what I’m writing now.
I did not turn it off.
If you’ve read about the game or already or watched it yourself, you’ve surely seen the final score. Yet, if you haven’t, I’ll keep it to myself just a bit longer.
OU prevailed despite turning the ball over 26 times, 18 in the first half, which means for 20 minutes coach Jennie Baranczyk’s Sooners were on pace to turn it over more times than coach Sherri Coale’s Sooners at the 2007 Big 12 tourney title game — 32 — against Baylor, which I’m pretty sure is the program record.
OU won that game, too.
In the first quarter, after beginning the game with two turnovers their first three possessions, the Sooners then went seven possessions without a giveaway.
Nothing wrong with that, until they turned it over five more times the rest of the quarter, 11 times in the second quarter — 11!!! — and six more in the third.
Additionally, between the second and third quarters, OU scored the grand sum of 19 points, making a grand total of six shots over 24 attempts.
Really, the Sooners scored 15 points the last 4:41 of the first quarter and 22 the last 6:49 of the fourth and that was it for good basketball.
But that 11:30 combined span on the clock was enough, OU scoring 37 of its points in a contest it trailed by seven with 7:14 remaining, to turn back the Rebels 66-56 on their home court.
Mostly a horrid game until the end, it was nonetheless a huge win.
It ended a two-game losing streak, moving the Sooners to 17-6 overall and 5-5 in the SEC.
It came at the expense of a team that entered 6-3 in conference play, having beaten 24th-ranked Vanderbilt twice and a Mississippi State team that’s already beaten OU. Not to mention, the Rebels fell by just three points to fourth-ranked Texas.
Apparently, the way the game went was the way a lot of Ole Miss games go. Entering the contest, the Rebels led the SEC in scoring defense, allowing 54 points per game. Thus, on a night OU bettered Ole Miss opponents’ average output by 12 points, it also fell short of its own average by 21.
The entire experience left two things to think about this Sooner team that struggles so mightily to stay out of its own way.
One, this can’t stand.
Two, it’s a resilient bunch.
Begin with one.
OU cannot beat good teams, and indeed it hasn’t, by playing well half the game or less. Nor can it expect to beat good teams, and it hasn’t, when it’s turnover total is nearer 30 than 10, which it’s been in seven of 10 conference games.
Nor can it ever expect to be the team it’s supposed to be when two long-time starters, Skylar Vann and Nevaeh Tot, remain in dire search of their game.
Tot, who’s lost her starting job to Reyna Scott, committed six first-half turnovers against the Rebels, killing much of OU’s 24-9 first quarter edge all by herself.
Though it should be noted, Baranczyk went with Tot more than Scott in the second half and it paid off. Tot committed no more turnovers and finished plus 16 over her 10 second-half minutes.
Vann, who scored seven points and grabbed two rebounds, finished minus 8 over her 21 minutes and was not on the court when the Sooners made their comeback, exiting the game with 8:29 remaining, OU trailing 49-43, only to reenter with 1:36 remaining, OU on top 60-56.
Since conference play began, Tot’s compiled just one more assist (27) than turnovers (26) while her playing time has dwindled to 18.3 minutes.
Meanwhile, Vann’s shooting less than 40 percent from the floor and less than 30 percent from 3-point land, averaging 6.7 points and four rebounds after averaging 15.6 and 7.1 against Big 12 opponents last season.
Nor can the Sooners, a self-admitted “3-point shooting team,” expect to weather many storms shooting 30.5 percent from distance against SEC foes, their current accuracy rate.
Good thing they hit 7 of 14 against the Rebels on a night they were without center Raegan Beers, who was overcome by illness during pre-game warmups.
Yes, that happened, too.
So, they’re resilient.
“It’s a pride point … that we face some adversity, and sometimes we create our own adversity,” Baranczyk said, “but when we face adversity, we’re really good at being able to [overcome it].”
True, yet saddling yourself with so much adversity game after game after game remains no way to play consistent winning basketball.
As it happens, OU’s about to get a favor from the SEC’s schedule makers.
It has Auburn (11-11, 3-7) at home on Monday, followed by a trip to Missouri (12-13, 1-9) a week from Sunday, followed by Vanderbilt (18-6, 5-5) in Norman, followed by Arkansas (9-16, 2-8) in Fayetteville, Florida (12-12, 3-7) in Gainesville and No. 23 Alabama (19-5, 6-4) in Norman and that’s it for the regular season.
OU might win all of them without playing its best in any of them, but what would be the point of that?