Oklahoma basketball: Irish come out fighting, bury Sooners in NCAA Tourney
By Chip Rouse
Notre Dame unleashed a fury of points right out of the gate before the Lady Sooners Oklahoma basketball team knew what had hit them.
By the time it sadly was all over, the No. 5-seeded Fighting Irish had handed the N, 4 OU women their worst loss of the season in a 108-64 beatdown on the Sooners’ home court at Lloyd Noble Center.
Notre Dame’s 108 points is tied for the fourth most ever scored at home against an Oklahoma women’s team and was just three points shy of the all-time record. The loss was the Sooners worst in an NCAA Tournament game.
The second-round loss in the NCAA Women’s Tournament ends Oklahoma’s season, while Notre Dame (24-8) advances to the Sweet 16 and a date with No. 1 seed Virginia.
The score was tied at 7-7 two minutes into the game when Notre Dame went on a shooting frenzy, outscoring the discombobulated Sooners 28 to 5 for the remainder of the opening quarter. Oklahoma had no answer for the Fighting Irish shooters.
“Notre Dame accelerated like a Formula One car while the Sooners sputtered, smoked and stalled.” — Ryan Aber, staff writer for The Oklahoman.
At one stretch in the first quarter, Notre Dame made five straight three-point shots, four of them by one player, Dara Mabrey, who seemingly couldn’t miss from any range. Over a four-minute stretch in the opening quarter. Notre Dame scored 20 straight points.
Notre Dame led 35-12 after one quarter and the onslaught continued in the second quarter with the Lady Irish putting up another 25 points to take a shocking 35-point, 60-25 advantage into the locker room at halftime over the No. 4-seeded Sooners. It was the most halftime points Oklahoma had given up all season. The previous high was 47 in a game against Baylor.
Taylor Robertson had 15 points, including three three-pointers, in the first half to lead the Sooners.
No other Oklahoma player had more than four points in the first 20 minutes. Oklahoma shot just 24.2 percent (8 of 33) in the first half and added to its own self-destruction committing 16 turnovers. Meanwhile Notre Dame shot 52 percent in the first half, with two players, Mabry and Sonia Citron, contributing 17 points apiece.
The Sooners showed some life coming out after halftime, but unfortunately the hole they had dug for themselves was far too deep to climb out of. As strange as it may sound after building a 30-plus-point advantage, Notre Dame actually shot better in the second half than it did in the first 20 minutes.
The Irish shot 52 percent from the field in the first two quarters and improved to 56 percent in the second half, including a high of 60 percent in the final quarter.
The Lady Irish outscored OU in all four quarters and three Notre Dame starters scored at least 20 points in the game. Mabry (29 points and seven three-pointers), Citron (24) and Maya Dodson (20) outscored the Sooners all by themselves. And here’s the kicker: Notre Dame’s top scorer on the season, freshman sensation Olivia Miles, was held to her season average of 13 points.
The game was summed up perfectly in the words of Ryan Aber, sportswriter for The Oklahoman: “Notre Dame accelerated (off the starting line) like a Formula One car while the Sooners sputtered, smoked and stalled.”
Oklahoma ends the season with an overall record of 25-9 and a 12-6 fourth-place finish in the Big 12.
Three obvious takeaways from the Lady Sooners’ NCAA Tournament exit:
Some games just get away from you
It’s difficult to say if Oklahoma would have won this game even if the Sooners had played their best. The game would at least have been more competitive had OU played better, but the brutal fact is, Notre Dame played an outstanding game and was much better than the Sooners on this night.
The Fighting Irish might have sucked the will right out of Oklahoma when they ran off 20 unanswered points, erasing a 5-7 deficit to take a 25-7 lead that was later expanded to 35-12 by the end of the opening quarter. Add 25 more second-quarter points to the Lady Sooners’ 13 and the contest was all but over with Notre Dame holding a 60-25 advantage at the game’s midpoint.
"“We were rocked a little bit, honestly,” said Sooner head coach Jennie Baranczyk in her postgame press conference. “A lot bit, actually.”"
Lack of size, length too much for Sooners to overcome
Not only was Notre Dame raining threes throughout the game, but the taller Irish dominated in close to the basket. The Lady Irish scored almost half their points (50) in the paint. Even when they missed a shot in close — which wasn’t often — they were able to muscle for the rebound and get it back up and in.
Ironically, though, it was the shortest player in the Notre Dame rotation, 5-foot, 7-inch Dara Mabrey who hurt the Sooners the most. Mabrey was 7 of 12 from the behind the three-point line, including five in the opening quarter, for a game-high total of 29 points.
Sooners should be in great shape for next time around
The 2021-22 season is now history for the Sooner ladies. Although the season ends in a devastating loss and exit from the NCAA Tournament, the positives from the season journey in Jennie Baranczyk’s first year as head coach far outweigh the negatives. The Sooners’ 25 wins were the most since the 2009-10 season and represented a 13-game improvement over last year.
You wouldn’t know it from what turned out to be OU’s final game of the season, but the Lady Sooners averaged 82.6 points a game, which is tied for the fourth most in program history.
By any measure, this was a very successful season for women’s Oklahoma basketball, and the Lady Sooners should have virtually everyone back for another go at it next season.