OU Women's Basketball travels to Wichita State on Tuesday @ 6 PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The #9 ranked 3-0 Oklahoma Sooners will travel to Wichita State for a 6 PM tipoff with the Shockers on Tuesday night. The Sooners set a scoring points record for the program as they defeated Western Carolina 122-56. Wichita State won their last game by 5 points over St. Thomas (MN), 69-64. Wichita Starte's record is 2-2 this season.

The game will be on ESPN+.

Here is the pregame article by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/11/1 ... hita-state

There is one comparitive score with Oklahoma Christian this season as OU defeated Oklahoma Christian 114-47 while Wichita State defeated Oklahoma Christian 66-52. Wichita State and Oklahoma have played twice in the three years with Coach Baranczyk as the Sooner Coach. OU has won those two games 89-67 in 2021 and 92-68 in 2023. The pace of play has benefited OU greatly in their two games with Coach Baranczyk on the sidelines.

Wichita State is led by two starting guards, #0 - Jameson and #25 - Blow as they average 14.3 and 10.8 Pts/Game. They play the most minutes and and have taken the most shots for the Shockers this season. In the paint, the Shockers are led by #4 - Murray and #5 - Niankan as they pull down 6.3 and 4.0 boards a game and score 14.3 Pts/Game combined. The other starting spot has been occupied by three players, 2 centers and one forward as the Shickers are looking for that fifth starter. White, #12, has played the most minutes of the 3 players as she pulls down 8.3 rebounds and scores 4.3 Pts/Game as a forward. The other two are centers who are 6'6" and 6'3". The two centers pull down 6.0 rebounds and score 8.5 Pts/Game.

The Shockers commit more turnovers than the assists they log in a game 15.5 to 13.5. They pick up 9.0 steals per game and have 3.75 blocks per game. They average 66.8 Pts/Game and allow 68.3 Pts/Game. The Shockers grab 43.8 rebounds per game and allow 37.0 rebounds a game. Wichita State shots less than 40% from the field and only 50/7% from the free throw line.

Oklahoma plays 12 of their 14 players between 10.0 minutes and 23.0 minutes per game. The Sooners starting front line scores 52.7 Pts/Game. They also pull down 23.9 rebounds per game. Beers, #52, Skylar Vann, #24, and Williams, #6, are playing very well in the young season. The starting guards for OU, Tot #1 and Verhulst #12 have not found their "A" game yet as they have scored 8.7 Pts/ Game and 7.4 rebounds per game. If they get hot, the Sooners will be even more efficient. It is only a matter of time before they do find their "A" game. Lexi Keyes, #15, and Zya Vann, #3, have played well off the bench for the Sooners at guard with strong defense and ball handling while pushing the ball up the court quickly. Liz Scott, #34, and Kiersten Johnson, #5, are provided strong relief on the front line when called upon by the Sooners. Culiton, #00, Joens, #20 and Reyna Scott, #2, are playing reseve roles well.

Oklahoma has averaged 97.7 Pts/Game with 58.0 rebounds and 51.5% shooting from the field. The Sooners have not shot well in 2 of the 3 games from 3-point territory though. The Sooners are shooting 69.0% from the charity stripe.

Oklahoma should be able to dominate in the paint on Tuesday night and with thier fast-paced offense the Sooners should be favored by a large margin. It would be nice to see Verhulst and Tot play better on offense on Tuesday night to give the Sooners an added boost.

Good luck to the Sooners on Tuesdat night!

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Basketball team defeated Wichita State 79-49 on Tuesday night in Wichita, KS. The Sooners never trailed in the game and increased their lead every quarter of the game. All that is good. The Sooner shooting and rebounding was also strong as they shot 47.6% from 3-point territory (10 of 21) and 47.0% from the field overall (31 of 66). The Sooners also pulled down 53 rebounds (13 offensive) to only 31 for Wichita State. Oklahoma also had 19 assists on 31 made shots and 14 steals in the game.

BUT - those pesky turnovers showed up last night as the Sooners had 24 turnovers last night. Before last night the Sooners were averaging 14.3 turnovers per game. The Shockers were overplaying the passing lanes out front to prevent OU from moving the ball to the other side of the court and were fronting or overplaying Beers in the lane to deny the passes into Beers. Both tactics were successful for the Shockers as the Sooners only got the ball to Beers for 7 shots (way too low) and the overplays resulted in many of the 24 turnovers as passes were made more or less right to the defensive player or to a player that was not open. The two point guards for OU, Nevaeh Tot and Zya Vann had 3 and 4 turnovers respectively. Beers also had 3 turnovers. Nine of the twelve Sooenrs that played last night had at least 2 turnovers. Keys and Liz Scott had just 1 turnover and Beatrice Culliton had 0 turnovers. The Sooners had 6 turnovers in each quarter.

Luckily, the Sooners shot well from beyond the arc as noted above. They made 10 three's in the game with 7 coming in the first half and 3 more in the 3rd Q. OU did not make a 3-pointer in the final quarter. Payton Verhulst, in her best game of the season, made 3 three's and socred a game high 16 points for the Sooners aas she also pulled down 7 rebounds. Lexy Keys also made 3 three's and socred 12 points. Raegan Beers, managed a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds but she was only 1 of 5 from the free throw line. She needs to work on her free throws as she will be fouled this season. Zya Vann also scored in double-digits with 10 points.

Skylar Vann had a very quiet game with 7 points and 2 rebounds. Liz Scott also added 7 points and grabbed 6 rebounds. Sahar Williams got in a bit of foul trouble and scored 5 points with 5 rebounds but had 6 assists (a team high). Kiersten Johnson and Culliton had 4 points and Tot had 3 points on a 'three' which was her only shot of the game. Reyna Scott and Aubrey Joens did not score.

It was unusual that the Sooners shot only 46.7% from inside the 3-point line on 21 of 45 shots. Usually the Sooners shoot well above 50% from insidethe arc. Wichita State did cause some issues inside with their three bigs inside that rotated in and out of the game. Only four Sooners shot 50% or better from the field last night, Beers, Keys, Verhulst and Z Vann.

It is my observation that the Sooners seem to play very well when Keys or Z Vann is in the ball game as the scoring threat rises from the guards and their defense is really very good on the ball. When they both are in the game at the same time, that good play is maginfied. In four games, Tot has taken only 4 shots. That may be be design, but the offense improves a bit to me, when Keys/Z Vann are in the game.

I also have noticed that when the front line includes Johnson, L Scott or Culliton as two of the three bigs, that the offense really slows down unless the thrid player is Beers. But usually L Scott only plays when Beers is out. The Sooners may need Skylar Vann in the game whenever Liz Scott is in the game. I also think it is a key that one of Verhulst or Williams need to play well every game as that 2nd or 3rd scorer for the Sooners. Beers will get her points, I think Vann will be a good scorer as well in most games. But with Williams and Verhulst also playing well, the Sooners become tough to play defense against.

During the 4th quarter last night, after 3 or four trips down the floor with almost nothing positive happening on offense, Coach Baranczyk called a time out and probably got on the team as hard as I have seen. She was frustrated with the play of the team at that point and she had good reason to be upset. Just because you are ahead by 20+ points does not allow a team to just play sloppy basketball. I liked Coach Baranczyk's fire that she showed the players. I think that the team will have lots to look at from the game last night on tape and need to correct it quickly as they will leave for Vegas on Thursday night probably.

The Sooners are now 4-0 on the season. In 2021-22 and 2022-23 the Sooners under Coach Baranczyk lost their 5th games of the season to Oregon and to Utah. In 2023-24 the Sooners ran out to a 6-0 record before they lost to Princeton.

The Sooners will be in the Las Vegas Area for their next three games. On Friday, the Sooner Women will play UNLV in Thomas & Mack Center in an 8:30 PM tipoff. UNLV is 4-1 on the season as their loss came to Arizona in Tucson. The Sooners lost to UNLV last season in Norman, 76-92 as they played in the bad streak of games last season where the Sooners lost 5 of 6 games just before the Big 12 play began.

Next week the Sooners will play in Henderson, NV in the Lee's Family Forum (where the Golden Knights play NHL Hockey, I think). The two games in the Ball Dawg Classis will be DePaul (2-2) on Monday and then they will play the winner of Duke (4-1) and Kansas State (3-0) on Wednesday.

Two watch the three games, you will need to steam the games. The UNLV is on MW (Mountain West) Network. You might be able to watch the UNLV game free, but it may not be free.

The two games in the Ball Dawg Classis are on FloHoops. (I have never used FloHoops but I imagine you can get a monthly subsricption for around $10 dollars if you desire).

All three games will be on radio at KOKC 1520 AM. And then there is always 'Live Stats' that will allow you to follow the action.

The Sooners have played 1 very good game this year so far, (Western Carolina) two one solid games (Southern and Virginia) and one game that was not so good (Wichita State) due to the turnovers and poorer shooting inside. I know I say that as they have won by 32, 44, 66 and 30 points. But the bar is high for the 9th ranked Sooners!

In a point of good news, I see where Verhulst announced that she has received a year's of elgibility from the NCAA and that she will return to the Sooners next season as well. That is good news for the Sooners!

Boomer Sooner!