OU Women's BB: Kicks off Big 12 against UCF- Sat @ 1 PM at LNC !

[OUBeliever56A]

The 6-5 Oklahoma Sooners Women's Basketball Team kicks off their Big 12 play on Saturday @ 1 PM in Lloyd Noble Center against the UCF Golden Knights with their 9-1 record. The Sooners goal in the first Big 12 game this season is simple, just do something different, anything, to get them on the right track. The Sooners have managed only 1 win in their last six games and lost by an average of over 10 points a game in those 5 losses.

Coach Jennie Baranczyk is one win away from her 250th win of her coaching career. It would be nice for her to pick up the win on Saturday to help the Sooners jump start their season. After a 5-0 start with two good wins over Ole Miss and Virginia, the Sooners have fallen on a bad streak including the loss to Southern University on December 22nd for their 3rd loss in a row.

Here is the Sooners staff writers article about the game. The game tickets are $2 a seat and concessions (hot dogs and drinks) are also $2 as well.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/12/2 ... n-saturday

The game will be broadcast on ESPN+ with Chad McKee and Dan Hughes calling the action. there is also a radio link provided in the article if you need a radio feed.

What is the difference in the six wins vs the five losses? Well, some of it is the competition. In their six wins, the Sooners played maybe 3 good teams (Wichita State, Ole Miss and Virginia). In their five losses the Sooners played 4 good teams (Princeton, Tennessee, UNLV and North Carolina). Oklahoma's best game this season was probably the win over Ole Miss on the road. In the six wins the Sooners scored 92 points a game while in the their five losses they have scored only 66.8 points per game. Currently the only 'ranked teams' the Sooners have played are North Carolina, UNLV and Ole Miss. What is noticeable this season is the number of Sooner players that score double-digit points. In their wins, 4.3 players score in double digits. In their losses, only 2.6 player reach ten points. That includes the 4 players that reached double-digits in their loss to Southern.

Another trend is the number of points they give up. In their wins the Sooners gave up 65 points a game. In their losses that have given up 77 points a game. At the same time, they score less getting fewer players involved and they give up more points in their losses. It is not a good recipe for success. Another large issue is the teams ball handling. They are averaging 22 turnovers a game. That takes away 22 opportunities to score. When you are shooting over 50% inside the 3-point line, like the Sooners are doing, that is an easy 22 points you are not giving yourself the chance to score. Despite not having a bonafide post player on the floor, the Sooners do rebound well as they pull down 7 more rebounds a game than their opponents.

Something that has been a problem lately is their team defense. They have trouble stopping outside scoring, scoring going to the rim and post up opportunities in the lane. Most of the matchups the Sooners have on defense just does not fit most of the time. As is the case, I fear, for the UCF game.

UCF will start three guards that are 5'9", 5'10" and 6'0" (Petersen, Jewett and Burns). They score 40.6 points a game. How does the Sooners at 5'3"(Tot), Keys (5'7") and Verhulst (6'1") match up against that. The key is to stop Petersen who scores 19.5 points per game with 27 made three's with 18 steals. Jewett leads the team in assists and adds 22 made three's and 14 steals. Burns, at 6'0", scores 11 a game with 4.2 rebounds. she does not shoot many three so she probably plays around the free throw elbow or offside low on the block as she is the 2nd best offensive rebounder. I am not sure how OU matches up with those three with Tot, Keys and Verhulst. Those three guards for UCF play 100 minutes a game. UCF has two reserve guards (Ware and McMillan) play another 34 minutes game. so the Knights play some with four guards on the floor (with Burns moving inside) and one other big on the floor.

Inside, the Golden Knights, start Akot (6'1" - 8.0 Pts and 9.8 rebounds) and Kelly (6'3" - 5.8 Pts and 5.8 rebounds). Akot seems to be a handful on the floor. With Kelly, and two reserves (Ngodu, 6'3" C and Gibson, 6'2" F) they fill out the remaining minutes on the floor. I would say that Gibson is a potential scorer and Ngodu is the rebounder off the bench. I also have some concerns about how OU matches up inside with those four defensively as well as how OU can score consistently inside against them.

UCF scores 69 points a game and allows 53.5 points. they take 57.7 shots a game. OU averages 10.6 more shots per game despite the 22 turnovers the Sooners average. But UCF also turns the ball over with 18.5 per game. I wonder if that means that it could be a sloppy game?

OU really needs to handle the ball better tomorrow and maximize their chances to score. They need to play much better team defense and help each other. I can see Kennedy Tucker playing some minutes tomorrow on defense against the guards for UCF. But she is not a scorer which means she has to play great defense to matter much. Joens has the opposite problem, she can score but her worth on defense is hustle and rebounding and not guarding a scorer or slowing a scorer down much.

The key players for the Sooners against UCF may be Scott as a bigger guard on the floor (instead of Tot or Keys) and one or two of the trio of post players the Sooners have. But that means that one of Verhulst, Vann and Williams is not on the floor. Coach Baranczyk does not have a lot of options. Someway, the Sooners need to keep at least three good scorers and three god defenders on the floor at all times. The substitute strategy needs to be specific for the needs tomorrow instead of just providing minutes for players or 3 players for 3 players as often happens. I hope Oklahoma plays their best game of the season tomorrow. It would be nice to see.

Good luck to the Sooners tomorrow.

Boomer Sooner!

[TN Sooner]

Nice to work through a win. Looks like they really focused in running a clean half-court offense and not just throw up whatever they can to “run fast”.

More 2, 5, 25 please. Let the youngsters play. If we’re going to get better this year, it is going to be because of the puppies - let them play.

[EMan]

It didn't start out too well. Down 11-0 right out of the gate. Pretty frustrating first qtr, but they settled in and pretty much dominated the rest of the way. Had the lead by halftime. The outside shooting continues to struggle mightily, but they did a good job inside the arc, and played some good defense. A much needed win.

[OUBeliever56A]

A win is certainly a win. Which is great news in every way for the Oklahoma Women as they defeated the Golden Knights of UCF 69-52. The win is even more impressive when the game started out with UCF scoring the first 11 points of the game. From that point on, the Sooners outscored UCF 69-41.

The win was earned in the paint for the Sooners. Once again, the Sooners were futile from beyond the 3-point line as they were 3 for 22 for 13.6%. Inside the arc, they were 24 for 44 for 54.5%. OU scored 42 points in the paint to emphasize that it is easier to score when you are closer to the bucket. The bench also played an important role in the game. The Sooner bench contributed 41 of the 69 points for the Sooners. That leaves 28 points for the starters.

The win also earned on defense as the Sooners held UCF to 33.3% shooting from the field and allowed less than 20 buckets to the Knights at 19 total shots made. That is only the second time this season that the Sooners have done that. The other was against Alabama State in a 92-46 win. In the game, Johnson was credited with 4 blocks but she might have had 6. She can play her own style of defense in the paint.

The other big contribution as noted above was the bench for the Sooners. Reyna Scott led the Sooners in scoring off the bench with 11 points, on 5 of 6 free throws and 3 buckets from the field. In addition to Scott, Johnson, Joens and Allen each added 8 points. The four of them also had a +76 total in +/- minutes played. Vann and Verhulst helped a bit as they scored 10 and 9 points respectively. Keys also played well defensively as she had 7, yeah 7 steals in the game. Keys also added a three and a bucket for 5 points.

The Sooners, now 7-5, won the last three quarters which included the 2Q and 3Q where UCF scored only 5 and 10 points respectively.

The Sooners will be tied for 1st place after the 1st game in the Big 12 which is always good. They will travel to Utah to play on January 3rd against BYU. But BYU has to travel from Ft.Worth tonight to arrive home after losing to the Frogs today so the travel thing evens out for both teams. With about half of the 4th quarter to play, the Frogs lead BYU by 19.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Sooners win over UCF on Saturday afternoon.

https://soonersports.com/news/2023/12/3 ... ks-off-ucf