Sooners shut down against Bruins
Sixth-ranked Oklahoma not ready for prime time Monday night in Sacramento
The Oklahoma women reached the Sweet 16 last season and brought back one-time third-team All-American Raegan Beers, who’s one of eight on the preseason All-SEC first team.
They brought back Payton Verhulst, the quickest gun in the West (and East), a second-team SEC preseason selection.
They added the nation’s No. 1 recruit, Aaliyah Chavez, and dang it if the pollsters didn’t relish the idea of the first really, really, really strong band of Sooner women in a very long time, posting them No. 6 before they played a game, the program’s highest starting point since 2008.
Yet, late Monday night in Sacramento, coach Jennie Baranczyk’s group proved they weren’t ready to be that team, at least not yet.
Yes, it was third-ranked UCLA on the other bench, and still one hopes OU’s gotten its worst game - a 73-59 loss - out of its system already.
A few numbers were good: turning the ball over only nine times against an apparently great team; forcing 16 turnovers from that great team; holding the Bruins to 39.7 percent shooting (29 of 73); getting 13 points, six rebounds and two steals from off-guard Zya Vann, whose 5-of-11 shooting mark was better than every Sooner but reserve center Beatrice Culliton, who hit 1 of 2, each attempt a free-throw line jumper.
Perhaps you can guess the rest?
Calling the game for FS1, play-by-play woman Elise Woodward committed one of my forever media pet peeves: falling over backward to minimize an athlete’s struggles.
“She just hasn’t gotten everything to drop at a high rate,” Woodward said of Chavez’s shooting fortunes when, in fact, Chavez had gotten almost nothing to drop at a rate near zero.
Once again, she got her shots.
But after making 5 of 18 and 1 of 8 from beyond the arc against Belmont seven days earlier, Chavez went 4 of 16 and 1 of 2 against the Bruins and had to hit three of her last four to do that.
Though Beers grabbed 14 rebounds, she made just 2 of 7 shots and an alarming 3 of 9 foul shots, making her 5 of 15 on charities in the young season, a 33 percent mark that can’t persist, lest she become an offensive liability in tight games, opponents fouling her possession after possession.
Verhulst finished with 16 points on 7-of-17 shooting, missing several she might have made, while the Sooner bench — Culliton, Caya Smith, Brook Stewart, Keziah Lofton — went a collective 1 for 7, scored four points, grabbed five rebounds and blocked three shots, making the quartet woefully unproductive over 44 combined minutes.
All told, OU shot 30.7 percent (23 of 75) overall, 25 percent (4 of 16) from beyond the arc and 60 percent (9 of 15) from the foul line.
The Sooners were also outrebounded 59 to 43.
Not good.
Of course, UCLA went to the Final Four last season and boasts 6-foot-7 Lauren Betts, the Big Ten’s preseason player of the year. Kiki Rice is a preseason first-teamer, too.
Monday night, though, Betts and Rice were held in check, the former finishing with nine points, 10 rebounds and four blocks, the latter with 10, six and three.
The difference-makers were fifth-year grad student Gianna Kneepkens, who played her last four seasons at Utah and canned 8 of 14 to finish with 20 points; and Angela Dugalic, a redshirt senior who came off the bench to pour in 16, grab 15 rebounds and nab three steals.
OU led 16-11 in the first quarter before, with Chavez on the bench after two quick fouls, allowing a 13-2 run from the Bruins.
Though UCLA led only 24-22 at quarter’s end, OU never led again.
The Sooners scored 37 points in the final three quarters combined, their longest run of consecutive points over the game’s final half hour topping out at six.
Good for it, OU faces four teams it ought to clobber, three at home, over the next seven days:
• Kansas City, 8 p.m. Wednesday
• North Alabama, 10:30 a.m. Friday
• at Western Carolina, 2:30 p.m. Sunday
• East Texas A&M, 6 p.m. Nov. 19
The Sooners have two more chances to make non-conference hay — unless it’s three, which would require Florida State or Missouri State turning into something, one of which they’ll meet Nov. 30, two days after topping Coppin State at the Coconut Hoops Classic, in Fort Myers, Fla.
• No. 10 North Carolina State, 6 p.m. Dec. 3, in Norman
• No. 20 Oklahoma State, 3 p.m. Dec. 13, in Oklahoma City
In both, they should at least be better than they were against the Bruins.