OU Basketball: Lady Sooners Getting Job Done, Too
By Chip Rouse
The Sooner men get most of the attention when we cover and comment on OU basketball, but the Lady Sooners are having another strong season, as well.
The Oklahoma women went on the road on Wednesday, and had to mount a serious second-half comeback to escape with a 78-65 victory over the Lady Horned Frogs of TCU.
Sherri Coale’s 17th-ranked Sooners were coming off a tough road loss suffered at Baylor over the weekend and found themselves trailing by double digits to TCU midway through the third quarter before going on a 26-4 run to end the game and come away with their 11th win the of the season and their second in Big 12 play.
Senior forward Kaylon Williams was the big gun again for Oklahoma, finishing in double figures for the 14th consecutive game with 18 points and 10 rebounds. Williams is just 32 points shy of reaching the 1,000-point club for her career.
McKenna Treece came off the bench to contribute seven points, all of them coming in the final period during the Sooners torrid closeout. Peyton Little had 15 points for OU, and Maddie Manning added valuable free throws down the stretch, making seven of eight from the charity stripe.
“We were less than stellar for three quarters, and then in the fourth quarter we played harder, we played together, we played connected and I think you saw a refuse to lose mentality,” said Sooner head coach Coale in her postgame interview comments.
Terrific defense helped generate even better offense for the Lady Sooners as they forced 15 TCU turnovers on steals, a combined 12 by three different players. Oklahoma also recorded six blocked shots, the second most in a game this season, and outrebounded the Lady Horned Frogs by 44-28 margin, going 27-13 in the second half.
One troubling stat from the TCU win was the Sooners performance from three-point range. OU shot just 23.8 percent from behind the arc, hitting just 5 of 21 from that distance. Meanwhile, TCU made 50 percent of its three-point shots, on 8-of-16.
Next up for the Lady Sooners is a home date against Kansas State on Sunday. The Oklahoma men play host to K-State on Saturday.