Oklahoma Basketball: The Men May Be Down, but Not the Sooner Women
By Chip Rouse
It has not been a good season so far for the men of Oklahoma basketball, but the same cannot be said about the Sooner women.
The OU women upped their season record to 12-3 and 3-0 in the Big 12 with an 85-80 overtime victory over No. 24-ranked Kansas State on Wednesday at Lloyd Noble Center, where the Lady Sooners are 7-1 this season.
It was the fourth straight win for the Sooners, ranked 20th in the latest Associated Press poll, and their first victory over a ranked team.
Oklahoma let a 10-point lead slip away in the fourth quarter, and only a clutch three-point shot by junior Gabbi Ortiz as the game clock wound down to 20 seconds allowed the Sooners to tie the game at 67 and send it into an extra session. OU took control in the overtime and closed out the visiting Wildcats to preserve the win.
“I thought our response to some late adversity was really positive…We fought out way through it to finish with a win.” –Sherri Coale, OU women’s coach on the Sooners OT win over Kansas State
“I’m really proud of our team,” Sooner head coach Sherri Coale said after the game. “Gabbi hits a huge shot to get us into overtime, and then out execution in overtime was just spot on.”
Ortiz tallied 16 points in the win over Kansas State. She was a perfect four for four from three-point range. Her four made treys without a miss was the first in Sherri Coale’s 21 seasons as head coach of the OU women’s team.
Maddie Manning and Vionise Pierre-Louis scored 12 of OU’s 18 overtime points to put the Sooners over the top. Manning finished with a team-high 20 points and Pierre-Louis contributed 17.
The Sooners’ leading scorer on the season, senior Peyton Little was held to just eight points on Wednesday night on three-of-15 shooting, despite playing a career-high 45 minutes. Little averages 13.4 points a game.
The OU women’s squad has an important factor going for it that is strikingly absent on the men’s side: experience. The main contributors among the Sooner women are juniors and seniors, while men’s coach Lon Kruger has 11 freshman and sophomores on the roster and is absent four starters from last season’s Final Four team that featured All-American and National Player of the Year Buddy Hield.
That lack of experience is a giant factor in the performance difference between the OU men and women basketball teams this season.
The Sooner women have the game experience and camaraderie playing together, which is a prime contributor in their confidence and resiliency to be able to finish strong and close out games, something that the OU men are having great difficulty with this season.