Sooner BB wins over Minnesota 88-69

[OUBeliever56A]

Sooner Women's BB Team defeat Minnesota 88-69 to finish the Bahama Trip at 2-1 and 5-1 overall.

The big news of the game was that Taylor Robertson scored 19 points to pass the 1500 point mark in her career. The 12th Sooner to do so.

I will add more in the morning. Boomer Sooner!!!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the staff article about the OU Women's Basketball game with Minnesota yesterday.

https://soonersports.com/news/2021/11/2 ... u-win.aspx

First of all I am glad I waited until I read the article before posting. I listened to the game yesterday on radio. It was news to me that Minnesota used a full-court press in the 2nd quarter last night. Maybe I missed the coverage of that on the radio, but I did not know that until this morning. But that makes a lot of sense to me and explains the 2nd quarter very well.

Back to the game....

The Sooners got started well against Minnesota scoring in the first 20 seconds of the game. That started a very good quarter which saw the Sooners race out to a 7-0 lead. Minnesota got things sorted out at that point and regained the lead at 8-7 at the 4:50 mark. The next time the Gophers scored a bucket from the field the score was 16-11 in favor of the Sooners. OU outscored Minnesota 11 to 3 in the final minutes of the first quarter to lead 27-14 behind a team effort with at least 7 Sooners scoring.

Th second quarter started with a 11-0 run by OU with 5 different Sooners scoring to lead 38-14. In the next two and half minutes the Sooners committed 5 TO and did not score while Minnesota got back into the game by scoring 14 straight points to trail 38-28. (I think this was when the Gophers deployed the full-court press against OU.) The Sooners got a bucket by Llanusa and two free throws from Robertson to lead 41-30 at halftime. But Minnesota turned the game around in the quarter from being down 21 to down by 11. If the press was the reason, I imagine the Sooners will be working on this the next wee before their next game next Tuesday.

Th 3rd quarter was a series of runs by the two teams. OU managed a 7-2 run to lead 48-32. Then Minnesota had a run of 12-2 to trail 50-44. Just before the media timeout, Vann scored to make the score 52-44 at the 4:19 mark. OU outscored Minnesota 8-5 to close the third leading 60-49. In the 3rd quarter, Madi Williams topped 10 rebounds and 10 points to tally her second double-double in a row for OU. Her 12 points, 11 rebound effort was the first time a Sooner has had a double-double in two consecutive games since 2019 when Williams recorded two straight.

Another Sooner mark that was in-play in the game was Taylor Robertson's pursuit of the 1,500 point mark for scoring. After three quarters Robertson had 7 points and was 10 points shy of the mark at 1,490 points. The Sooners opened the final quarter with 7 points to Minnesota's two to lead 67-51 to force a timeout by the Gophers after a 2nd chance after an offensive rebound by Scott. Robertson drained a 3-pointer to give the Sooners a 20-point lead at 73-53 with 4:43 left in the game. Robertson added another 3 to make the score 76-57 to bring her within 4 points of 1,500. Robertson's 3rd 3-pointer of the final quarter made the score 81-60 to leave her 1 point shy of the mark. After a Svoboda bucket (with an assist by Robertson) and a bucket by Tucker the moment came. After a blocked shot on the Sooner defensive end of the court by Svoboda, Robertson was left alone on the break for a three. When it dropped through the net Robertson passed the mark for her 1,502nd point for the Sooners with 00:53 left in the game. Her 3 was the last points of the game as OU won 88-69.

The top 4 scorers for the Sooners were; Robertson 19, Llanusa with 17, Vann with 15, Williams with 12. Rebounding was lead by Williams with 11 and Vann with 7. Washington had 3 steals and 8 assists to lead those stats.

The Sooners seem to have settled into a 9-player rotation with the starters being Williams, Robertson, Llanusa, Washington and Lampkin. Vann, Tot, Scott and Tucker are providing good minutes off the bench to make up the rotation. The inside game of the Sooners is being handled well by Lampkin, Vann and Scott at this point. Svoboda plays a few minutes each game to complete the rotation. Washington and Tot are doing a god job running the point and playing defense for the Sooners. Tucker seems to be gaining more minutes with her play also. The scoring 4-some of Williams, Robertson, Llanusa and Vann are putting presser on teams as they rotate throughout the game. Coach Baranczyk seems to have a working plan for the team. Their key of 'having fun' seems to work. The defense is holding up especially outside the paint with the Sooners as they have averaged 17 turnovers caused and almost 9 steals a game. When they get hot from the outside, Robertson and Llanusa can score very quickly for the Sooners. At 5-1 the Sooners should be pleased with their season at this point.

The Sooners play their next game in Dallas against SMU on November 30th. SMU is currently 2-2 with losses to Oklahoma State and Arkansas. They play two more games prior to the OU contest. After the SMU game, the Sooners play Mississippi State in the SEC/Big 12 challenge in Norman and LNC on Dec 4th. Mississippi State is currently 4-0.

Boomer Sooner!