OU W Basketball Travels to Oxford to play Ole Miss Tonight @ 6PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The 23rd ranked Oklahoma Women’s Sooner Women’s Basketball Team travels to Oxford, Mississippi to play the #12/#16 ranked Ole Miss Rebels on Thursday night in a 6 PM tipoff. The Ole Miss Rebels won their first game of the season over Queens College 91-44 for a 47-point win. Oklahoma defeated Wichita State 92-68 for a 24-point win in their first game.

The game will be on SEC Network. Here is the Sooner staff writers article about tonight’s road game.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/11/8 ... -25-battle

Last year, in Norman, OU won 69-59 over Ole Miss in Lloyd Noble Center in a pre-conference matchup. I think that is a pace that Ole Miss wants to play tonight in Oxford. They probably want to keep the game in the 70’s or the 60’s and play a slow down game.

I would expect the Sooners to start the same five tonight as they started against Wichita State. Neveah Tot and Lexi Keys at guards, Payton Verhulst, Sahara Williams and Skylar Vann up front.

The Ole Miss Rebels could present a good look at the OU frontline tonight. Ole Miss is at least as big in the front court, and they look to have more depth up front than the Sooners. It will be interesting to see if OU’s front court can keep pace with the Rebels. The youngsters of Landy Allen, Kiersten Johnson and Beatrice Culliton will have to help Skylar Vann and freshman Sahara Williams tonight. The Ole Miss size may force Payton Verhulst to play on the front line tonight also. If OU can get their running game going, the size difference may not make that much of a difference. But if the game is a slower pass, every trip up and down the court could become physical and a game that is won down low in the paint.

Ole Miss will have a size advantage over Oklahoma in the backcourt. It will be interesting to see how OU will help Tot and Keys if Ole Miss takes them down low. In the opener, OU played mostly woman-to-woman defense. I hope that continues, but figuring out how to help the smallish guards for the Sooners will be a key. OU can counter with Reyna Scott, Kennedy Tucker and maybe Aubrey Joens.

It may take a good effort from the Sooners tonight to bring a win back to Norman. The Sooners need to stay out of foul trouble, especially in the frontcourt, to have their best chance to pick up a win.

Good luck to the Sooners tonight.

Boomer Sooner!

[SoonerGirl1201]

Ole Miss has won 20 of their 21 home games and OU is taking it to them. Jennie has the girls playing really well!

80-64 with 1:04 in the game.

First road non-conference win over a ranked opponent for OU girls since 2007!!!!! That's awesome!

[MsProudSooner]

Sooners win, 80 - 70!

[OU Guy]

Wow that new coach can coach! I say new because it takes a few years to get your players into your system.

[OU Guy]

[SoonerGirl1201]

That was a great win!

[TN Sooner]

Wow - what a win! There were several moments of “wow, thus team has a chance to be really good”.

If you didn’t get to watch, I’m sure it’s available “on-demand” on ESPN+. Worth your time to watch it.

[OUBeliever56A]

I am watching the replay of the game as I type this. It has been a busy morning. I was pleased when I found out that the Sooners had won the game last night while I was at the Sooner Softball Battle Series Game. Most of my comments are from looking at the Stats and the first half that i have watched.

This was an important win for the Sooners. Winning a game on the road against an SEC team and a ranked team will look very good on the resume come tourney time if I am not getting ahead of myself.

It looks like that Skylar Vann played, well at least shot the ball much better last night as she scored 24 points with 7 buckets inside the arc, 2 beyond the line and 4 free throws. She also added 4 rebounds. Sahara Williams had a nice game in the second game of the season with 13 points and 10 rebounds all on the defensive end. Lexy Keys added 11 points and 3 boards as she shot 40% from the floor in the game. Three other Sooners look to have played well also. Aubrey Joens, who always just contributes, scored 9 with 6 boards. Reyna Scott added 6 points with an assist and a steal. Beatrice Culliton in 13 minutes added 8 points and 4 rebounds and did not miss a shot last night.

OU got 24+ minutes out of the trio of Culliton (13:22 min), Landry Allen (5:58 min) and Kiersten Johnson (4:44 min) to fill one spot on the floor last night. Their combined +/- was +3 as a group, I think the Sooners hope that those three can create a positive +/- during the season to help inside. Lexi Keys must be doing something right as her +/- was +26 last night. Vann's was a +17. The five starters, Tot-Keys-Verhulst-Williams-Vann had a combined +65 for the night. That will work most games.

I wondered about the Sooners keeping pace with Ole Miss inside. It looks like so far, the Sooners handled that just fine last night. Evidence of that is the 42 "points in the paint" by OU and only 26 by Ole Miss. OU also won the rebound battle with 46 to 45 for Ole Miss. Both of those stats mean that OU held more than their own inside.

The Sooners shot well in the game at 43.8% from the floor and the 87.0% from the free throw line. OU can win games with those shooting stats. Oklahoma only made 4 of 18 (22.2%) from outside the arc but Lexi Keys, Vann and Aubrey Joens should be taking those. No Sooner had more than five 3-point attempts.

The half time score was 39-38 in favor of Ole Miss. The Sooners outplayed the Rebels in the second half as 42 to 31 to create the 10 point lead and victory. Coach Baranczyk credited Vann, Williams and players like Neveah Tot for playing well in the game. She felt that Tot controlled the game well in the second half. Anytime the Sooners can win a game this year with Payton Verhulst and Tot only scoring 8 points, the Sooners will take the win, I think.

The turnovers for OU totalled 19, which is not terrible but not real good either. But they did have 28 assists and steals in totals. Ideally you would like to have 2 assists/steals to every turnover, but at almost 1.5 the Sooners kept it positive against a ranked team.

The Sooners play at home on Sunday at 2 PM against Oral Roberts in the Lloyd Noble Center. ORU is 1-1 in the new season. They lost to TCU by 20 points and then they won against Friends University by the score of 100-47. I guess that Friends University could have "gotten a little help from their friends" as the Beatles sung so well about.

Coach Baranczyk has the Sooners off to a good start. Congrats to the Team.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

On another note, the lone Sooner recruit for next season is Zya Vann, Skylar Vann's younger sister. Vann is listed as a PG, SG and she is 5'9" it looks like.

Vann is currently ranked No. 46 nationally in ESPN's high school recruiting rankings and joins her 2025 Bronchos teammate Keziah Lofton in Norman — who committed to OU in September 2022.