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Coach Baranczyk and the Oklahoma Sooner Women's Basketball Team opens the season on Monday at Noon with a game at Lloyd Noble Center against Wichita State. It was announced recently that Liz Scott, veteran C for the Sooners, will not be playing this season due a shoulder injury. Her absence leaves a bit of an unexpected hole to fill for the Sooners in addition to the loss of three veterans, Madi, Williams, Taylor Robertson and Ana Llanusa, who started many, many games for the Sooners and have now moved on to pro ball.

But the new-look Sooners looked good against West Texas A&M in their opening exh game last week and won easily 113-38. But the play was high level for the Sooners.

The starters against WT A&M were, Neveah Tot G -5'3", Lexi Keys G -5'7", Payton Verhulst G -6'1", Sahara Williams F -5'10", and F Skylar Vann F -6'0". That lineup included three new players for the Sooners as Keys transferred in from OSU, Verhulst transferred in from Louisville and Williams is a heralded freshman. Those 5 scored 67 points and had 30 rebounds in 86 minutes of play. The remaining Sooners scored 46 points and had 35 rebounds in 114 minutes. Beatrice Culliton led the subs in points with 11 and freshman Landry Allen led the subs with 11 rebounds.

In replacing Liz Scott, the group of Sooners headed by Vann, along with Culliton, Allen and Kiersten Johnson looked good and provided some depth at the Center position. Aubrey Joens, Kennedy Tucker and Reyna Scott will provide depth in the backcourt and on the wing for the Sooners.

Wichita State is in transition this season. They have lost at least 43 points and 24 boards a game from veterans that led the Shockers last season. In their exhibition game against Missouri Southern, the Shockers won 76-65. #3 Jobe a Redshirt Senior at Guard, led the Shockers with 22 points in that win. A true freshman, #25 Blow added 16 points and 4 rebounds off the bench to help key the win. The only other double digit scorer for Wichita State was #23 Abies who had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Wichita State's starters were Jobe G -5'7", McCarty G -5'8", Abies F -6'0", Murray F -6'1" and Niankan F -6'1". Three players played 15+ minutes off the bench including Blow a G -5'11", Anciaux C -6'4" (4 points/8 rebounds) and Kowcun G -5'10" (5 boards).

It will be interesting to see if Blow made a good enough impression in the exhibition that she will start tomorrow. But maybe for a scoring punch off the bench, they will leave the freshman to do that instead.

If the Sooners are able to get out and run tomorrow, I think everything will take care of itself and the Sooners will nail down a win. But, Wichita State has some bigs that could challenge the Sooners inside in a slow paced game when the Sooners are on defense. We should be able to see if the young bigs for OU along with Vann can handle a decent size lineup against them. I will be very interested to see how freshman Landry Allen plays tomorrow after a good debut in the exhibition game. Sahara Williams, a very talented freshman at forward will give up some size the the frontline players for Wichita State. I will be interested to see, how she reacts in her first real game tomorrow. I expect she will be just fine.

Good luck to the Sooners tomorrow.

Boomer Sooner!

Here is the Sooners staff writers article about the opening game tomorrow against Wichita State.

BTW - Tomorrow's Noon tipoff is the first half of a Noon - 6 PM DH with the men playing in Lloyd Noble Center at 6 PM against Central Michigan.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/11/5 ... ay-at-home

Monday's game will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Chad McKee and Dan Hughes on the call. Brian Brinkley and Kevin Henry will call the action on the Sooner Radio Network (KRXO 107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Varsity Radio App).

Boomer Sooner!

The final score of the game today was OU - 92, Wichita State - 68.

Here was the scores by Quarters:

Oklahoma trailed at the end of the 1Q 18-21.
At Halftime OU still trailed 34-38.
After the 3Q the score was Oklahoma 69 - 49.
The big quarter was the obviously the 3rd Q. What happened at half time to cause OU to outscore Wichita State 35-11? I am not sure, but here is what I think.

I have always been a bit of a skeptic about the substitution patterns that have been used th elast two seasons for the Sooner Women. It looked to me that an assistant coach determined who came into and out of the game. The substitutions have been many and often which constantly changed the team on the floor into new roles and new responsibilities. It has always been a bit confusing to me and made it a bit harder to play the game with so many changes. That pattern was in full force the 1st half. The Sooners did not have much of a rhythm or 'go to' person in the half but they were looking for that person. In the second half the Sooners moved 180 degrees in a different direction. At about the 7 minute mark, Coach Baranczyk went down the bench and pulled Kennedy Tucker into the game to add some defensive punch to the Sooner lineup. But Tucker got hung up on the sideline and did not get into the game. Meanwhile the Sooners were playing some of their best ball as that outscored the Shockers 15-4 in the 3Q by the 6:04 mark. Verhulst was the potential All-American we have heard about as she scored three straight buckets and a free throw. Then Vann made a bucket in the lane, Keys made a 3-pointer and Tot scored on a break after a steal. At that point, Coach Baranczyk added four other players to Tucker as Reyna Scott, K Johnson, L Allen and A Joens all joined her for a 5 player swap.

That lineup outscored Wichita State by the score of 14-4 in the next 3:14 seconds of play. Reyna Scott led the way with 7 points in that stretch with Johnson, Landry and Joens (with a 3) all scoring buckets. At the 2:50 mark, Coach Baranczyk went to the bench again and pulled up the original five and sent them into the game. (Keys could not be swapped out with Tucker because Tucker was shooting a foul shot as she made 1 of 2. On the miss FT, Verhulst picked up a rebound and scored. OU finished the 3Q outscoring the Shockers by a 5-2 score to make it 69-49 for a 20-point margin.

I do not really know why the wholesale substitutions worked, the two lineups are not very similar at all, but it did. Give Coach Baranczyk a "high-five".

In the 4Q, at the 7:03 mark, the five players swapped out again with the score at 71-53. The first three minutes of the 4Q were very slow for both teams.

At the 4:35 mark the score was 77-58 in favor of OU after a Wichita State 3-pointer. At the point the Sooners went back to a single person substitution pattern the rest of the way. OU outscored Wichita State 15-10 down the stretch to win 92-68 by 24 points. I thought Reyna Scott and Aubrey Joens played well as the end of the game.

The first half was well played by both teams but Wichita State had the upper hand much of the half. The Shockers prevented OU the running game that the Sooners have thrived on for 2 years. The Wichita State defense challenged every pass, every catch and every rebound and they shot well while not giving OU very many easy points at all. OU's offense was just struggling something to hang their hat on. They struggled with the Wichita State pressure on the ball and the cut to the bucket were cut off and the paths to an open pass were blocked often. I think you just have to give a 'good job' to the Wichita State team in the first half. They won the first half.

As I said, the second half was different. Wichita State got into a little foul trouble in a game where you could get a foul called at the thought of touching an offensive player. The play was very choppy due to the referees calling most every little ticky, tacky foul they imagined. The lack of depth hurt Wichita State ultimately. Their shooting cooled off as well. OU also ended up out-rebounding the Shockers 50-29.

As to what I thought about the game and OU's play. I think that the play of Velhurst, Keys, Reyna Scott and Joens will be very important to the Sooners. I think Tot, Vann, and Williams will hold their own, but the difference makers will perhaps be those four. I think Sahara Williams could develop into a difference maker, but right now, I think she is a small forward playing in the big forward slot against the best competition she has played. She needs to transition to a different mindset I think.

I also think that Landry Allen can be a plus for the Sooners inside. The Sooner offense is not set up for a 'big' to be successful unless she can run the floor and can shoot the 3 and pick up points inside on the boards. Allen can do all of that. She also provides a little defense with her length and blocks. She had 3 blocks today. But she will have to be assertive on offense and call for the ball as she gets in position on the low block because the offense runs around the arc for the most part. The more dominant that Allen gets, she could add a great deal inside.

Kennedy Tucker is a valuable piece due to her defense. She did come into the game in the second half and help shut down the leading scorer today for the Shockers. That was needed at the time. Kiersten Johnson is improved and has bigger, stronger body I think. But still needs to work hard on catching and shooting in traffic. But she has size the Sooners need and is has her moments on defense.

OU had five players score in double digits; Joens scored 19 with her hustle shooting style, Verhulst had 16, Keys had 14, Williams had 11 and Scott had 10. Vann had 7 boards with Williams, Johnson and Joens adding 6. Verhulst added 5 boards. Tot had 6 assists with Scott adding 4. OU needs to work on turnovers though as they had 26 against 11 steals. They will have to do better than a 2+/1 - "TOs to Steals" to win tough games.

If you like the +/- stat for players, the four leaders against Wichita State were Tucker with a +20, Allen with a +19, Scott with a +18 and Joens with a +15. The +/- stat is the difference in the points scored by OU versus the points allowed by OU while a player is in the game.

We will see how the game at Ole Miss goes on Thursday night at 6 PM. I will have to look at Ole Miss to see what they have. The Sooners did defeat Ole Miss in Lloyd Noble Center last season by a score of 69-59 based upon good play in the 2Q and the 4Q.

The Sooners are 1-0 and won their first game by 24 points and scored 91 points. All is pretty good in Norman and with the Women's BB team for now.

Boomer Sooner!

Say this about Ole Miss - they are currently ranked 12.

Game Thursday is listed as being on SEC network. I think that means ESPN+ too

First half I'm thinking oh hell no. In the second I'm lke HELL YES