www.soonertimes.com

No. 13 Oklahoma (16-5, 4-4 SEC) opens February on Sunday, hosting No. 12 Kentucky in its second straight top-15 matchup. The Wildcats (18-2, 7-1 SEC) have won 11 of their last 12, while the Sooners aim to avoid their first back-to-back losses of the season.

Tipoff is set for 3 p.m. CT on SEC Network, with Courtney Lyle (play-by-play and Carolyn Peck (analyst) on the call from Lloyd Noble Center. Brian Brinkley (play-by-play) and Kevin Henry (analyst) will call the action on the Sooner Sports Radio Network (107.7 FM The Franchise; Varsity Radio App).

Sunday marks Oklahoma's annual OU Health Pink Game, raising awareness and supporting the fight against cancers affecting women. The initiative began in 2007, founded by Hall of Fame coach Kay Yow, who lost her battle with breast cancer in 2009. Today, more than 1,000 schools participate, raising over $8.5 million for cancer research and support. OU partners with OU Health and the Stephenson Cancer Center to make a lasting impact on the local community. The first 1,000 fans will receive free pink t-shirts and survivors can receive two (2) free tickets by using the promo code PINKGAME.

Here is the pre-game article written by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2025/1/31 ... -pink-game

Today's game against #12 Kentucky is a key game in the season for the Oklahoma Sooners Women. A win would help them tremendously since it is against another Top 15 team. I have not looked at Kenricky at all. (I am traveling for the second weekend in-a-row for family events.) But they have beem playing extemely well. OU needs one of their better efforts of the year to be successful on Sunday.

Good luck to the Sooners against Kentucky.

Boomer Sooner!

Sooners lose, 95-86. OU was ice cold from beyond the arc through the first three qtrs. I remember they were 1-17 from 3-pt range at one point. They had a stretch where they warmed up and hit 5 of 7 long-distance shots, but the hole had already been dug by that time. Georgia Amoore for Kentucky was as hot as OU was cold. She had at least 43 (I'm not sure if that was her final total or not. Can't remember.) but OU had no one that could guard her today. She pretty much seemed to score at will. Kentucky never trailed after taking an early first qtr lead. The Sooners closed the gap to 1 early in the third, but a 16-0 run by the Wildcats left OU fighting uphill the rest of the game and they never got over the hump. A very disappointing game from a defensive standpoint. Sahara had a very good game offensively, and OU had 5 players in double figures (Verhulst and Beers both had double-doubles) but Kentucky was able to respond every time the Sooners tried to make a push.

There is nothing to say about the #13 Oklahoma Women's BB team after the 86-95, 11-point loss to the #12 Kentcky Wildcats but, "#3 Georgia Amoore is a very good guard and that she dominated the game for the 39 minute she played". She shot 15 of 22 from the field while being 7 of 12 on "three's" and was 6 of 8 from the charity stripe for a total of 43 points. OU never had a solution to slow her down or prevent her in any way to score when she needed or wanted to do so. She is by far the best player I have seen play against OU this season. Williams for LSU was very good on Thursday as she scored 37 against OU. she was pretty good as well. OU does seem to have a defensive problem right now against good scoring guards with no appearent solution to be found.

Having said that, Kentucky came in took contol early and just outplayed the Sooners in the 1stQ as they lead 30-19 after 10 minutes. Kentucky shot nearly 50% better from the field and nearly 40% better from "three's". Oklahoma added to that with 4 turnovers as Kentucky scored 7 points off them. Kentucky actually had their biggest lead of the game just before the end of the 1stQ at 15 points. Amoore scored 10 in the quarter for Kentucky. Sahara Williams kept the Sooners in the game with 11 points in the quarter as well as the Sooners 8 for 8 shooting at the foul line.

OU clawed back two points off the Kentucky lead in the 2ndQ as they "won" the quarter 17-15 as Kentucky still lead by 9 points at 45-36. Amoore scored 10 more in the 2ndQ as Williams added 6 more to her total. OU had 4 more tunovers in the quarter with Kentucky scoring 6 points off them.

Okahoma came out of the locker room and played very well in the first 3+ minutes of the 3rdQ. They Sooners outscored Kentucky 10-2 and trailed by one point, 46-47 when the Kentucky coach called time out to right the ship for the Wildcats. The Sooner Women had tremendous momentum and th crowd was standing up and cheering loudly. "Everything was coming up roses" at the time, so to speak. Then the Sooners did something that I just do not understand. The Sooners took out R Scott, Williams and Beers to bring in Tot, Keys and Culliton to play with S Vann and Verhulst. Just like they do 9 times out of 10 every 1Q or 3Q. Kentucky found their footing and scored the next 11-straight points with Oklahoma trying to get the Sooner starters back in the game in the next 3 minutes before another time out. The lead grew to 17 beore OU scored and virtually the game was over with 1:42 in the 3rdQ as Amoore made a 3-pointer. Oklahoma did score the final 5 points of the quarter to trail 52-63 at the buzzer of the 3rdQ. In another "different move" Oklahoma sent Caya Smith into th game to play amost 4 minutes in the 3rd and 4th quarters after playing in 9 games this year all in the last couple minutes of a game. I understand that Smith is athletic but it seemed different to see her so early when the team was behind. (I will note that OU had to play without Liz Scott due to her ejection at LSU on Thursday. that did hurt the Sooners inside as Johnson and Culltion played in relif of L Scott's absence. they played 11 minutes and scored no points and got 2 rebounds with Allen not playing in the game.)

In the 4thQ the Sooners got the lead down to five points with two "3's" to open th 4thQ and once again the Sooner crowd was loud and momentum was there for OU. But two "three's" by Amoore silenced the crowd and moved the lead back to 11-points and OU just never got within 8 points after that as the game wound down. Amoore scored 18 in the 4th and 5 in the 3rd to get to her 43-point total. The 95-86 win by Kentucky is hard to argue with from a Sooner perpective.

Oklahoma endeed with 39.5% shooting compared to 50/0% for the game. Kentucky shot 41.2% from downtown on 14 of 34 "three's" compared to 20.7% for the Sooners on 6 of 29 shooting. OU was 20 of 23 from the free three line compared to 15 of 20 for Kentucky.

OU ended with "only" 18 turnovers but Kentucky scored 25 points off those turnover while OU scored just 5 off the 14 Kentucky turnovers. OU did win the rebound battle 50 to 34. But on 18 offensive boards the Sooners scored jusst 10 second chance points.

The substitution pattern seems to be etched in cocncrete for Oklahoma almost without ever considering the game status or score or momentum. I guess you can try to say that with momentum, you can substitute and the momentum will carry you forward. But when you sub 3 for 3, I wonder if momentum carrys anywhere.

Here is the post-game article written by the OU Athletics Communications group.

https://soonersports.com/news/2025/2/2/ ... 2-kentucky

Here are some points from the game in the article.

• Sophomore Sahara Williams scored a career high 27 points on 8 of 19 shooting and a perfect 9 of 9 performance at the free throw line. The Waterloo, Iowa, product added five rebounds and a block in the loss.

• Payton Verhulst notched her sixth career double-double in an 11-point, 10-rebound night. The guard registered five assists in 35 minutes.

• Raegan Beers secured her 39th career double-double and ninth of the season, tallying 18 points (7 of 13 FG) and 10 rebounds.

• Zya and Skylar Vann also scored 17 and 11 points in the game. Zya's 17 is a new career high for her.

• Reyna Scott scored 2 in the game from the free throw line.

As the three Sooners (Williams, Verhulst and Beers) led the Sooners in scoring they were also 20 for 47 for a 42.6% from the field. The rest of the Sooners were 10 for 29 for 34.5%.

The Sooners are now 16-6 overall and 4-5 in SEC play. I trust that the Sooners will still be ranked after dropping two games to two teams ranked #7 and #12 this week. They will play the final 7 games with maybe two teams ranked on their schedule at this time, Ole Miss nd maybe Vanderbilt. The Sooners have a chance to finish strong with 5-7 wins to close out SEC play. But defense will have to be something the Sooners play better, period. In the last games, two ranked teams this week scored 107 and 95 points against OU. Even OU has trouble outscoring those points with their run-and-gun style.

Up next is Ole Miss in Oxford on Thrusday night followed by Auburn in LNC on Monday night.

Boomer Sooner!