What do Sooners, Baranczyk want to be and are they willing to self-correct in real time to be it?
From the second quarter forward, Oklahoma played and was coached like a team resigned to its fate against beatable Longhorns
There was this first-quarter moment inside Lloyd Noble Center on Thursday.
Up five points, Oklahoma inbounded under the Texas basket, Liz Scott to Lexi Keys, who hit Sahara Williams on the right wing, who found Scott, the trailer, slicing through the middle of the lane for a should-have-been layup and free throw.
It took 8 seconds, and though Scott missed the shot and hit just one of her free throws, it was Madison Booker’s second foul, sending Texas’ best player to the bench.
Most important, it was the blueprint.
It was how the ninth-ranked Sooners were going to beat the fifth-ranked Longhorns.
Because Texas couldn’t keep up. It couldn’t begin to keep up.
Scott’s free-throw culminated an 11-2 run that had OU in full command.
Two trips later it was Nevaeh Tot to Payton Verhulst to Sahara Williams, who buried a left-corner 3, Texas again failing to match OU’s pace.
When the quarter was over, the Sooners had scored 26 points, led by nine and nobody in the building had any reason to believe Texas might prevail.
The Sooners were that good.
It was that clear.
Of course, Texas did win the game, 80-73, and it begs a question.
Or two.
Who do the Sooners (12-2, 0-1 SEC) want to be?
Do they want to be the team from the first quarter, playing with pace, brimming with confidence, shooting 50 percent despite going 1 of 7 from beyond the 3-point arc, committing a reasonable three turnovers as they flew up and down the court?
Or are they and their coach, Jennie Baranczyk, content with being the team they were in the final three quarters, playing scared when things became hard, treating the basketball like a hot potato and committing 24 additional turnovers, hanging close only at the foul line because when they weren’t turning it over, it became the only way they could score?
And are they capable of the decision-making, focus and leadership to get in the way of their own paltry fate when things turn difficult?
A year ago, Tot delivered 18 assists against two turnovers in OU’s two Texas tussles, both victories.
Thursday, it was two assists and six turnovers, including back-to-back snafus around the the 2:00 mark of the fourth quarter that weren’t remotely forced, the Sooners trailing by six points at the time.
“We beat ourselves,” Tot said. “It was the turnovers. The ball pressure wasn’t as high as we thought it was … We practically gave them the ball.”
To her credit, Tot saw the game with clear eyes afterward. Also, during it, her struggles weren’t the Sooners’ biggest problem.
That was Baranczyk.
She’s rebuilt a program, her team’s typically great fun to watch, she has it in the top 10 for crying out loud, yet she was absent when she couldn’t be absent against the Longhorns.
We can’t know if her intervention would have worked. We only know that she failed to intervene … when OU committed five turnovers in the space of eight possessions, allowing an 11-2 second-quarter Texas run; when it committed three turnovers over its first six possessions of the second half and went without its first field goal of the third quarter until Scott managed a layup with 4:12 remaining; when it committed three turnovers the first four possessions of the fourth quarter.
Not once did Baranczyk stop the madness by calling time out during any one of the many moments her team needed a break to reset and refocus, get back its wits and slow down the horrendous hoops it was playing.
Instead, she spent her first timeout of the game with 42.1 seconds remaining, trailing 75-68, in a game already decided.
There’s no getting it because there’s nothing to get.
It’s not soccer, in which there are no timeouts.
It’s not hockey, in which you have only one.
It’s basketball, in which you’re afforded many.
The boxscore would have you know Verhulst, though she missed 10 of 11 from 3-point land, finished with a game-high 23 points on 6-of-12 2-point shooting and 8-of-9 foul shooting.
No other Sooner attempted more than eight shots and that was Raegan Beers, who netted 11 points.
Baranczyk, afterward, preached balance.
“Payton had too many shot attempts, and we’re not good when we have that,” she said. “… I thought she was good. I just think that we needed more from everybody else.”
Some may assert it would have been different had Beers not been in foul trouble the whole night, limiting her to 17 minutes of court time. Then again, she was minus 15 over those 17 minutes, which is hard to do.
Of course, if Baranczyk really wanted to spread the wealth, get others involved, find the balance she craved, she might have considered calling time out during any one of the first 39 minutes of the contest in an attempt to make it happen.
Texas was tough, imposing, physical. Also, plodding and slow.
The Longhorns (14-1, 1-0) didn’t have to be intimidating, but the Sooners let them be. Still, that should have led to a shot-clock violation or two, not 27 giveaways.
“We need to get better, and so we’re going to get better,” Baranczyk said. “That’s going to be our focus, and we have to get better because when we hit the road, this is a conference that’s going to [bring] pressure, it doesn’t matter who you play.”
OU’s next two games are at unbeaten and 15th-ranked Tennessee (12-0, 1-0) on Sunday and at two-loss Mississippi State (13-2, 0-1) four days later.
The Sooners have time to improve.
Also, their coach must understand not all growth happens on the practice court and the locker room.
Make the right calls from the sideline, occasionally stopping the action to make them, and it can happen between tip and final buzzer, too.