Sooner Women's BB Travels to Utah to play BYU: Wed Jan 3rd @ 8PM

[OUBeliever56A]

Fresh off their opening Big 12 win over UCF, the Oklahoma Sooners travel to Provo to play BYU in a late night 8 PM CST game. On Saturday, BYU lost to TCU in Ft. Worth 81-67. On Saturday, OU defeated UCF by 17 points 69-52. Oklahoma comes into the game with a 1-0 Big 12 conference record and a 7-5 overall record. BYU is 10-4 overall and is 0-1 in Big 12 play.

The game will be televised on ESPN+ and the Sooner Radio Network for OU Women's BB.

Here is the Sooner staff writers article about the game with BYU on Wednesday night.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/2/ ... -wednesday

The Sooner Women's team has played BYU and won all six times. Coach Baranczyk owns two of those 6 victories over BYU as result of games in 2021 and 2022 with wins by 8 and 11 points in the consecutive seasons.

The game will likely turn into a contrast of styles, tempo and matchups. BYU is lead in almost every way by Lauren Gustin, #12 SR 6'1" F. In the two games with OU during the last two seasons, Gustin scored 15 and 13 points and pulled down 20 and 21 rebounds. The Sooners have to put a body on her and play her tough the entire game. This season, Gustin is averaging 16.4 points and 15.6 rebounds with almost 5 offensive rebounds a game. The matchup against Gustin is the key matchup for the Sooners. The only achilles heel for Gustin is that she has turned the ball over 51 times this season.

Two guards also play well for BYU with Woolston and Whiting, both freshman adding 25.9 points and 8.8 rebounds a game. Woolston is 5'11" while Whiting is 5'10". Woolston leads the Cougars in 3-point buckets while Whiting leads the Cougars in assists and steals. These two young guards could provide some matchup issues for the Sooners as well.

The remaining frontcourt players who starts is Calvert, a 6'4" F who scores 9.3 pts and 4.9 boards a game. She has 27 blocks this season and can make a 3-pointer is left open. The remaining guard is a Senior, Smiler, 5'8", who scores 7.6 pts and 24 boards a game. Smiler does everything, assists, steals, 3-pointers and blocks.

Four of the five starters for BYU play over 33 minutes. Their ability to keep up the pace with OU's quick pace could be key in the game at altitude. But of course that atlitude, could cause OU problems as well.

BYU plays only 4 or 5 other players with three of them being 6'0" G/Fs and a 6'3" forward and a 5'9" guard. BYU will have 3 or more 5'11" players on the floor most of the time.

The Cougars score 70.3 points a game and pulls down 41.2 rebounds. They commit 17.9 turnovers a game with 16.4 assists and 6.2 steals a game. They probably do not run much though as they only put up 54.2 shots a game. They shoot almost 39% from 3-point territory, 48.0% from inside the arc and 62.1% from the free throw line. They do go to the free throw line 20 time which helps them score.

The Sooners will be able to shoot more shots than BYU as the Sooners average 14 more shots game and 18 fee shots of their own. Oklahoma is shooting 51.4% from inside the arc but only 30% from beyond the 3-point line. A key number as always will be the Sooner turnovers as they average 19.5 a game. If OU can keep the turnovers under 15 against BYU, it should help a great deal.

We may see a change in the starting lineup for the Sooners. I just do not see how OU matchups us with a "frontline" Vann, Williams and Verhulst. I will make a guess and say that either Culliton or Johnson will start tomorrow with Williams moving to the bench for the game. Culliton/Johnson/Landry will triple-team Calvert and Hamson (bench) for BYU. I think Vann nd Williams will double-team Gustin while Verhulst and Joens (bench) probably matches up with Whiting (who goes to the boards). I think we may see just one of Tot and Keyes start tomorrow also as I think Scott moves into the starting lineup to play against Woolston. The other Sooner guard will matchup with Smiler. Kennedy can relieve as needed against the three BYU guards.

I think OU will want to run when they can. If they can control the boards (keeping one eye on Gustin) and get the ball out on the break, they may have some success running if they handle the ball well in transition. But when they run their set offense, movement of the ball is important and back door cut will help the offense. I would like to see fewer quick threes for the Sooners tomorrow night as the Sooners try to run patterns and work for better higher percentage shots against BYU.

I think the Sooners can pick up a win on Wednesday night against BYU. Maybe it is an upset win on the road as well. But OU's net ranking is #70 compared to BYU's #91.

Good luck to the Sooners in Utah! Coming home as a team 2-0 will be much better than returning to Norman 1-1 preparing to play Cincinnati on Saturday afternoon in LNC.

Boomer Sooner!

[SwampSooner]

Sooners win 75-63

[MsProudSooner]

OU never trailed and led by as much as 20.

[MsProudSooner]

Game Story: https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/3/ ... u-in-provo

[OUBeliever56A]

The Oklahoma Sooners took advantage of the poor shooting by the BYU Cougars in the first quarter and first half coupled with good shooting by the Sooners to take the early lead and win by 12 on the road, 75-63. The Sooners also played tough on the boards as they outrebounded BYU by 12, 55 to 43. The third key for the Sooners was their low total of turnovers in the game with 14. I think 3, maybe four of those turnovers were offensive fouls though as the Sooners did take care of the ball well last night. the Sooners won virtually every phase of the game with more points off of turnovers, more points in the paint, more 2nd chance points, more fast break points and more bench points. It was a solid win by the Sooners on the road over BYU.

The BYU shooting problems were two-fold. They just missed many open shots and the Sooners played good defense around the basket, including the rebounding effort. For the first time in the Baranczyk tenure at OU, the Sooners held their opponent under 30% shooting from the field. That point was the basis of the post-game recap by the Sooner staff writers article which is below.

https://soonersports.com/news/2024/1/3/ ... u-in-provo

Early in the game, the Sooners followed Keys and Joens to the 1Q lead of 10 points at 18-8. Keys had 8 points and Joens had 5 points for the Sooners in the quarter. In the second quarter, the Sooners followed Vann with 11 and Verhulst with 5 points to extend their lead to 17 points with the halftime score of 40 to 23. Oklahoma shot 10 for 21 in the first half from inside the arc and 6 of 14 from three-point land for a combined 45.7% shooting half. Meanwhile BYU was 8 for 36 from the field in the first half for 22.2% which included 2 for 15 from beyond the 3-point line.

In the second half, the Sooners were 0 for 14 from beyond the 3-point line which hurt their performance however. But the Sooners were 13 for 26 inside the 3-point line and 9 of 10 from the free throw line to salvage the half and score 35 points in the half to maintain their lead and win. BYU did pull to within 7 points of the Sooners in the 3Q but OU quickly regained their double digit lead and coasted to victory int he final quarter.

The scoring leaders for the Sooners were Vann with 19, Joens with 14, Keys with 12 and Verhulst and Scott with 9 each. Two Sooners pulled down double-digit rebounds as Verhulst had 11 and Joens grabbed 10 for a double-double with her 14 points. Johnson pulled down 7 rebounds off the bench. Most every Sooner played well for some part of all of the game last night.

The one lone question after the game is the health of Neveah Tot. In the second quarter the game action was halted due to Tot asking for timeout for an injury. She tried to warm-up at halftime, but told Coach Baranczyk that she could not go in the second half. In her place, Scott and Kennedy played extra minutes in the game due to Tot's absence.

I really do not get all the lineups for the Sooners but they have worked the last two games in conference play. I guess that is why that Coach Baranczyk and the coaching staff gets the big bucks, I and type about what I observe.. I do think the defensive intensity and the shooting has improved in the last two games.

An example of the fast paced play at time for the Sooners is this. The first 7 possessions of the game for the Sooners included 7 shots, 5 three's and 2 inside the paint. the Sooners made 2 of the three and the 2 shots in the paint. From the time that OU possessed the ball, the Sooners spent a total of 32 seconds to get those 7 shots headed towards the bucket. That is less than 5 seconds a possession in their first 7 times they had the ball. They also led 10-2 at that time. It is just a different way to play basketball. It is not always pretty, it is not always productive but at times it looks like the Sooners can play well.

Oklahoma is now 2-0 in conference play and 8-5 for the season. They are in a 5-way tie for 1st place in the Big 12. Only one of those five teams (West Virginia plays Texas) play a game on Saturday against a solid opponent in the Big 12. So in all likelihood, Oklahoma should have a good chance to defeat Cincinnati at home in LNC on Saturday and still be tied for 1st place in the Big 12 at 3-0.

It has been a good solid start for the Sooners in Big 12 play. That is what the Sooners needed to do.

Boomer Sooner!

[AustinTXSooner]

I wanted to strangle the male announcer because of his inability in pronouncing Verhulst, while the female announcer was getting it correct every time. He eventually got the memo sometime in the second half, but he was already dead to me by then. I was watching the game delayed, otherwise I'd have been tweeting him every time he said it wrong. Verl-hurst. There's not two r's and the l is in the second syllable. I've never simulcast a basketball game with the radio broadcast, but I'm thinking about it now. That would mean that I'd have to watch it live and that doesn't happen for me a lot in basketball.

We came out hot and that was awesome. We had scouted their leading scorer well and exposed her mid-range game for the failure that it is. It was embarrassing for her. I saw that she was in the top 50 watch list for player of the year. She won't make the next cut. She still scored 15 on us and had 20 rebounds, but my God, 40% free throw shooting?

I'm really liking Kiersten Johnson. Her level of play appears to have moved up. She's looking more comfortable out there. Every time that I see a score differential stat for her, it's good, +11 against BYU. It's difficult to play two undersized posts at the same time.

Lexi Keys does a lot of good things that don't show up on the stat sheet. She does pretty good on the stat sheet too.