Sooner Women's BB: Bedlam in Stillwater on Saturday @ 4 PM

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooner Women's Basketball Team currently on a five-game winning streak will be on the road on Saturday at Stillwater to play Oklahoma State at 4 PM. Oklahoma is in 2nd Place with an 8-1 record in conference play while Oklahoma State is 4-6 and in a Tie for 8th Place. The Cowgirls are 0-4 in their last four games including two home losses to Cincinnati and Iowa State.

The game is on ESPN+.

Oklahoma State usually plays 7, maybe 8, players in a game when it counts. They have started 7 different players but these four players have started all 21 games for the Cowgirls:

#4 - Asi (G 5'8") - 13.9 PPG with 3.0 RPG in 32.5 minutes a game
#00 - Noble (G 5'10") - 12.4 PPG with 3.6 RPG in 35 minutes a game
#32 - Heard (G 5'11") - 13.6 PPG with 6.1 RPG in 35 minutes a game
#12 - Garzon (F 6'1") - 9.9 PPG with 4.2 RPG in 34 minutes a game
The first three players below have have started games for OSU while the last player listed has played in the last two games:

#21 - Gusters (C 6'5") 12 starts - 14.1 PPG with 4.2 RPG in 23 minutes a game
#24 - Egharevba (F 6'3") 5 starts - 3.9 PPG with 4.9 RPG in 16 minutes a game
#11 - Langerman (G 5'9") 4 starts - 5.2 PPG with 4.4 RPG in 20 minutes a game
#45 - Ebert (G 6'10") - 1.3 PPG with 1.1 rebounds in 8 minutes a game

The Cowgirls start two players from last years regular players, Asi and Garzon. From what I see, the success for OSU goes up when they score more than 67 points in a game. In Big 12 play, they are 3-1 when scoring more than 67 points. When they score under 67 points, the Cowgirls are 0-4. When they score 67 points they are 1-1. During their current four game losing streak, they have not scored more than 67 points.

While the Sooners match up well with OSU on defense, they might have trouble limiting Gusters at 6'5" from scoring inside. The Sooners zone defense looked good against K-State so maybe the Sooners can handle the size of Gusters. OSU will shot the three's, so the defense has to extend itself to the arc to slow that down. I do not see OSU as a strong rebounding team with only 34 a game, but OU needs to make sure they do not rebound well on Saturday.

The four full-time starters are almost full-time players as well. The top four players average 34 minutes a game. Due to that, the more tht OU runs and pushed the ball, the more tired the Coqgirls might get. As long as the Sooners continue to handle the ball well and shoot to their average from the field, the Sooners have a very good chance to win in Stillwater. It would be nice if the Sooners shot to their season's average of 74.3% at the free shot line also.

I can see a Sooner victory being very possible on Saturday. Good luck to the Sooners in every way.

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner Staff writers article about the Sooner Women's Basketball game in Stillwater today at 4 PM.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/2/2/ ... for-bedlam

The game is on ESPN+ and there is no information about the a radio broadcast in the article.

Good luck to the Women today against OSU!

Boomer Sooner!

[BudaSooner]

If we can just quit beating ourselves by turning it over, we win this game going away. WAY too many turnovers!

[BudaSooner]

And my wish was fulfilled - the women took better care of the ball in the second half, won the game. So the men and women split a pair of road games, the men falling to UCF, the women beating the Aggie ballers.

Good win for Jennie's girls!

[EMan]

Once again the Sooners made the plays down the stretch to get the win. Five games in a row OU has managed to pull out the victory in a tight game. This run has been enjoyable and way more than anything I could've imagined after losing a couple of early non-conference games at the LNC. They did not look good at all in December, but somewhere the light came on and they've done a good job of cutting down on their turnovers while still playing at a very rapid pace. Billy Tubbs would be proud!

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma State Cowgirls opened the game against the Oklahoma Sooners with a strong first quarter of play as they made 2 more buckets and 4 more free throws in the quarter to lead 24-16 after the first 10 minutes. But the Sooners started whittling away at that lead. The Sooners scored 1 more point than OSU in the 2Q and 5 more points in the 3Q to narrow the lead to only 2 points with a 59-57 score in favor of OSU after 3Qs. Ou opened the 4th quarter with a quick run of points to take the lead and never looked back. Oklahoma won the game 81-74 as they outscored OSU 24-15 in the final quarter.

After Verhulst scored on a jumper to make the score 63-62 just inside the 8 minute mark of the 4Q, the Sooners scored the next 6 points on three's by Tot and Keys and led by 7 points, 69-62. the Cowgirls never got closer than 5 points following that point in the 4th quarter.

Once again, Skylar Vann led the Sooners with another wonderful game. Vann scored 22 points on 10 of 22 shots and pulled down 7 rebounds. She had 3 assists and 1 steal and 2 blocks to offset her 4 turnovers. She kept Oklahoma in the game much of the first three quarters while playing 35 minutes. Sahara Williams was perhaps the difference maker in this game after just playing 3 minutes in the first half. She scored 15 points on only 9 shots while adding 4 rebounds, an assist and 2 steals with 3 turnovers. She also played some solid minutes on defense against Gusters for OSU while being 7 inches smaller. Lexi Keyes survived the OSU homecoming as she was 4 for 5 from three-point territory and continue to play good defense as she scored 12 points. Payton Verhulst added a double-double with 10 points, 10 assists and 7 rebounds in a very solid game. In hat I think is a key, the rest of the team scored 22 points on 8 of 18 shots and 2 of 3 from three-point territory and 4 of 5 from the free shot line with 21 rebounds. That is solid play from Tot, Culliton, Johnson, Joens, Tucker, Scott and Allen. Culliton does deserve mention as she played 20 minutes (and scored 6 points) and helped in the effort against Gusters on defense in the game. Kennedy's defensive presence also helps the Sooners.

The Sooners 15 turnovers were a bit high, and helped OSU as they scored 23 points off those miscues. Another key for Oklahoma was their 10 for 26 shooting from beyond the arc for 38.5%.

Oklahoma did struggle a bit with stopping or slowing down the 6'5" center, Gusters for OSU inside. But they made her shoot 'only' 50% (8 of 16) inside by using several players to guard her and keep everyone out of foul trouble while doing so for 4Q. The Sooners used a zone some, some double-teams at times and just playing her with one player. But if Gusters catches the ball deep, he is difficult to stop. Noble and Asi did score 17 and 15 for the Cowgirls, but OU did a good job of shutting off everyone else to 20 points though. Oklahoma outrebounded OSU 30 to 23.

The game was similar to the last several ones where Oklahoma plays well down the stretch and picks up the win. They have become very tough in the final half and especially the final quarter. The Sooners are now 9-1 in the conference sitting in 2nd Place and 15-6 overall. The Sooners are playing their way into something much better than it looked like they would at Christmas when the Sooners were 6-5 and had lost 5 of their last 6 games. The Sooners under Jennie Baranczyk is now setting with a NET ranking of 38, which is a very solid ranking. The Big 12 has 6 teams in the Top 50 and all 12 teams in Top 100.

Today, Kansas State (9-1, 1st Place in the Big 12) plays at Texas (7-3, T4 in Big 12) at 1 PM on FS1. Around 3 PM, the Sooners could find themselves in First Place in the Big 12 with a 1/2 game lead over Kansas State and a full game lead over West Virginia in 3rd place ad a game and half lead over Texas and Iowa State in 4th. How nice would that be. The Sooners have worked very hard at becoming a better basketball team and it is paying off. The Sooners have shortened their bench, especially in minutes played, while still playing 11 players.

Oklahoma host TCU on Wednesday night in a 6 PM game that will be on ESPN+. TCU is 2-8 in conference play but still holds a 42 rankings in the NET for some reason. TCU has lost 6 of the last 7 games they have played in conference. They have had some injuries which affects them, and they held tryouts on campus to fill out the team after two forfeits. TCU was still down three starters on Saturday. I think two of the starters are out for the remainder of the season.

The Sooners have now won 6 games in a row (so has West Virginia) in conference play.

Congrats to the Sooner Women on their Bedlam victory!

Boomer Sooner!

[OUBeliever56A]

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the Sooner win in Bedlam!

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/2/3/ ... win-bedlam

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

The women are in a tie for first place with Kansas State right now. After the Kansas State/Texas game, we'll either be in first alone, or 1/2 a game behind in second.

The refs were not calling many fouls. And Gusters was getting away with a lot. That said, I think it was Sahara that finally got a charge call on Gusters. Gusters was hurting us a lot, but it's clear that she's not in very good shape. The last half of the 4th quarter, she did almost nothing. At the end of the game, it looked like Noble was the only one with gas still in the tank. And she was getting chippy with several of our players.

[OUBeliever56A]

The women are in a tie for first place with Kansas State right now. After the Kansas State/Texas game, we'll either be in first alone, or 1/2 a game behind in second.

The refs were not calling many fouls. And Gusters was getting away with a lot. That said, I think it was Sahara that finally got a charge call on Gusters. Gusters was hurting us a lot, but it's clear that she's not in very good shape. The last half of the 4th quarter, she did almost nothing. At the end of the game, it looked like Noble was the only one with gas still in the tank. And she was getting chippy with several of our players.

Itis true that before K-State and Texas play at 1 PM today, technically OU is in a tie for 1st place currently. But if K-State wins the OU wins the game against Texas, OU will still trail K-state by a half game. I was speaking as if K-state loses today referencing the half-game lead OU would have over them. It will be one of the two.

It was Culliton that picked up the offensive foul against Gusters. Williams certainly tried to but there was no call. It is amazing to think about what a good big 6'3" or 6'4" that had some bulk and could move could do for OU. The Sooner training staff needs to feed Johnson and Allen a ribeye daily along with some fried potatoes then send them off to the weight room to get stronger. Maybe in two years. Johnson had added weight in her first year which has helped her.

[MsProudSooner]

The officials swallowed their whistles every time Gusters had the ball She should have been called for 2 more offensive fouls. She bulled over Williams and Culliton once each.
I wonder if the OSU coach had any remarks about the team Jennie inherited after the game?

[EMan]

K. St. lost to Texas* today so the Sooners are now in first place by themselves.