Tonight, against No. 3 Texas, Sooners need only be who they've already become
Trying to explain Oklahoma women’s basketball this season is a nearly impossible task, the problem being where to begin.
Do you begin with the four losses in five games to Princeton, Tennessee, UNLV, North Carolina and Southern, juxtaposing that horridly awful run with a present that finds third-year coach Jennie Baranczyk’s Sooners near certain to claim a share of their second straight Big 12 regular season championship and a decent bet to win it outright?
Do you instead go with how the pollsters are so preposterously stuck in the past, seemingly oblivious to the fact OU’s taken just two league losses and sits atop the Big 12 Conference, yet, at No. 23, are nonetheless ranked 17 spots behind Texas, five behind Kansas State and just one spot in front of Baylor despite victories over each.
Or do you forget all that and go with where they are right now, how well they’re playing right now and how, during the dog days of the conference season, not only have they kept winning, but they’ve done it by playing better and better basketball, too.
Keep each option in mind, because they’re all true and, together, paint a fuller picture, but today we’re focusing on the here and now.
It’s apropos.
Because at 6 tonight, it’s third-ranked Texas (26-3, 13-3 Big 12) inside Lloyd Noble Center.
Should OU (20-7, 14-2) prevail, it can do no worse than tie the Longhorns for the better half of the regular-season conference crown, the half that comes with the No. 1 seed in the Big 12 tournament.
It was also the Sooners’ 91-87 victory at Texas on Jan. 24, despite their already being atop the conference, that signaled how much better they could still be, a prophecy that’s come to fruition.
The Sooners’ Austin victory propelled them to 6-1 in league play. They moved to 8-1 with grind-them-out wins over Kansas and at-the-time-second-ranked Kansas State, despite failing to score 70 points in both contests.
At that moment, halfway through the league slate, OU sat atop the Big 12 despite shooting just 39.8 percent against conference foes, making just 27.5 percent of its 3-point attempts, yet somehow turning those ratios into 71 points per outing, fueled by a league best, even then, 19.4 assists per game.
Since?
In the seven games that have followed, each one a victory but for a 70-66 setback at No. 24 West Virginia, the Sooners have shot 47.4 percent overall, 37.6 percent from 3-point land, scoring 82.1 points per game, averaging 23 assists.
Gargantuan jumps during the most difficult time of the season.
Who does that?
Right now, the Sooners are coming off 95- and 91-point outings against Cincinnati and Oklahoma State.
Over the entire conference slate, OU leads everybody at 75.9 points per game, 41.9 rebounds per game, 21.3 assists per game and an assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.54-to-1.
Thank Baranczyk.
Because she’s still playing 10 players at least 11.9 minutes, even against the conference, her team has remained fresh.
Because she’s recruited and developed her roster well, she can go that deep in the first place.
Thank the players, too.
Point guard Nevaeh Tot’s personal assist-to-turnover ratio is 3-to-1.
Skylar Vann has been a model of consistency, averaging 16.6 points and 7.3 assists the length of the conference season.
Payton Verhulst has gone from serviceable to becoming a difference-maker, averaging 16 points and 8 rebounds while shooting 48.6 percent (17 of 35) from 3-point land over her last five games, sporting an in-rhythm release that could not be quicker.
Much of it seems impossible.
OU was supposed to return two starters from last season’s squad, saying goodbye to Madi Williams, Taylor Robertson and Ana Llanusa, yet holding on to Tot, Liz Scott and two-time conference sixth-player-of-the-year Vann.
That, though, was before injury stole Scott for the season.
Even now, between the polls and bracketology estimates, the Sooners are being treated like the No. 4 team in the conference behind Texas, Kansas State and Baylor.
Indeed, while ESPN’s Charlie Creme forecasts OU to be a No. 6 seed at the NCAA tournament, he’s got the Longhorns a No. 1, the Wildcats a No. 4 and the Lady Bears a No. 5. This despite each of them suffering more conference losses than the Sooners.
But if results matter and statistics help explain them, OU’s right where it’s supposed to be, in front of everybody, waiting for Texas to show up on its floor this evening.
The nation loves Texas, yet only a month ago the Longhorns could not stop what they couldn’t catch and the Sooners have been playing and winning games just like it since, accelerating their rate of improvement.
It ought to be fun.
It’s been fun so far.
This is a really good piece ahead of a game that will say a lot about how good the women have become. Bob