OU Women BB defeats Central Arkansas 78-54

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners Women’s Basketball team defeated the Central Arkansas Sugar Bears last night 78-54. For the first time in 3 years the Sooner women are 3-0. Congrats to them and their new coach.

The staff article about the win is below.
https://soonersports.com/news/2021/11/1 ... years.aspx

Here are some thoughts about the win.

The Sooners opponent last night was the 3rd best team the women of OU have played this year. Despite the winning margin of 24 points, the victory continued to include some weaknesses of the team that will need to be addressed for them to become a much better team.

Turnovers: The turnover totals that the Sooners have totalled in the first three games have been 21, 15 and last night, 19. Central Arkansas was probably the slowest team the Sooners have played this year. Many of the 19 turnovers last night were during pushing the ball up the court or trying to force the ball inside the paint to players too deep to be able to shoot the ball if they were able to receive the ball cleanly. My difficulty with these passes is that for the most part, the pass does not give the team an advantage versus holding or keeping the possession of the ball and looking for other options. When the Sooners are trying to run and pushing the ball up the court, they make many cross-court passes to players on the 3-point line for a would-be quick shot before the defense is set up. These passes are tough to complete successfully and most often they are tipped or offline enough that the shooter must reset their feet before the shot. When that is the case, usually the shooting percentage goes down. Last night the Sooners had their least successful percentage form 3-point territory.

I understand the desire to run or push the ball with the Sooners speed/quickness and eventual height disadvantage down the road. But each mishandling of the ball when the play is ‘forced’ usually leads to a turnover and a lost chance to score. The turnovers need to be reduced to around 12 or so a game for the Sooners to move to a different level.

Free-Throw Shooting: The Sooners were 22 of 34 last night from the free throw line. That is 65% after two nights of 81% and 75% the first two games. The team will need every ‘free’ point they can get. There are none easier than a free throw.

Quick Shots from Downtown: Part of the apparent game strategy is to look for the 3-point shot in the flow of the offense. Last night the Sooners shot 31% of their shots from behind the 3-point line. No player successfully made more than 1 of those shots. As I have commented previously, the Sooners have players that can score from inside. IMO too often the 3-point shot goes up after 1 or 2 passes without looking inside for someone able to score. I think a team gets better shots overall working inside out, than working outside in. If a team has not threat or presence inside, the defense can adjust to spacing more easily.

Not taking advantage of situations: I witnessed two obvious plays last night that could have been better.
1) On a break after a turnover, an inside player and the ball handler were in front of the crowd running down the court. The lone defensive person was in the lane between the two OU players. With the ball on the left wing, the inside player chose to run down the right side of the lane with her hand up looking for a cross-court pass. IMO, she should have cut in front of the defender to the opposite block and called for the ball. She had the size advantage and could have scored fairly easily, I think. Instead, the ball was stopped by the defense outside on the wing without a shot on the ‘break’.
2) On a quarter-ending play attempt, the Sooners had the ball on the left side with Williams down low. She was one-on-one. Most of the remaining players were on the opposite side of the court. Instead of feeding the ball to Williams down low, the play was to have Williams to move up the left elbow of the lane to receive the ball. As she tried to drive down the left side of the lane two defensive players collapsed on her, and she was unable to get a shot off before the quarter ended. IMO, giving Williams the ball down on the block with the wing player moving to the top of the key to remove a defensive player on the side of the court was a better play. Williams could have squared up to face the defense or she could have gone right or left to shoot a jumper. I think she would have scored.

Who played well?
• Skylar Vann tallied a double-double last night with 12 points and 11 rebounds. She did that in only 16 minutes as well. That is a very good night for what looks like the first person off the bench for the Sooners. Vann played more inside on the offense last night than previous games. Her rebounding effort was a positive.
• Ana Llanusa led the team in scoring with 16 and had 4 assist (team high) and 5 steal (team high). She managed to contribute positively to the win despite not having a good shooting night.
• Madi Williams quietly had 15 points (with the team’s best shooting night) with 4 defensive rebounds. Based upon my perceptions of last year’s team, I thought the offense would run ‘through’ Williams more than I have witnessed through 3 games. She has scored well and leads the team with 17.2 points per game very quietly to me.
• Liz Scott in 8 minutes scored 8 points and had 2 rebounds and provided a bit of a spark inside for the Sooners.

Overall, I thought the Sooners never really got out of 3rd gear last night. After the opening quarter the Sooners led 14-11. In the second quarter, the Sooner defense showed up as they shutdown Central Arkansas and held them to 8 points for a 36-19 half time lead. But in the 3rdquarter the Sugar Bears of Central Arkansas kept up with OU and scored 17 to OU’s 18 points. In the fourth quarter the Sooners outscored their opponents by 6 points due to the best scorer for Central Arkansas turning an ankle and sitting out 3-4 minutes. The final was 78-54.

Being 3-0 is very good for the Sooner Women’s Basketball team. They travel this weekend to the Bahama for the Battle 4 Atlantis tourney. The open the tourney against the #9 Oregon Ducks. The Ducks have a very good inside game and a decided height advantage over the Sooners. The Oregon game will be a big challenge for the Sooners. Tip off on Saturday is at 4 PM. The game can be streamed via “FloHoops’. I do not know if that requires a payment or not. It also looks like you can listen to the game by looking at the schedule.

Good luck to the ladies. Boomer Sooner!

[OU_Tom]

[OU_Tom]