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Oklahoma basketball: Sooners take No. 2 seed into Big 12 Women’s Tournament

By Chip Rouse

Oklahoma Sooners guard Ana Llanusa (22) celebrates with Oklahoma Sooners center Beatrice Culliton (0) after a basket during a women's Bedlam basketball game between the Oklahoma State Cowgirls (OSU) and the Oklahoma Sooners (OU) at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, March 4, 2023. Oklahoma won 80-71.ouwhoops jump
Oklahoma Sooners guard Ana Llanusa (22) celebrates with Oklahoma Sooners center Beatrice Culliton (0) after a basket during a women's Bedlam basketball game between the Oklahoma State Cowgirls (OSU) and the Oklahoma Sooners (OU) at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Okla., Saturday, March 4, 2023. Oklahoma won 80-71.ouwhoops jump /
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The final weekend of the regular season didn’t quite go as the Oklahoma basketball women had hoped, but the Sooners will take the No. 2 seed into the Big 12 Women’s Tournament as the conference co-champion.

The Big 12 Tournament for both the men and women is being held in Kansas City, Missouri. The women’s tournament gets underway on Thursday at Municipal Auditorium, a few blocks away from the men’s tournament being held at T-Mobile Center.

Texas and Oklahoma ended up with identical conference records of 14-4. Texas earned the top seed in the conference tournament, however, courtesy of sweeping the regular-season series with the Sooners. The Longhorns defeated OU 78-58 in Austin in late January and 67-45 a month later in Norman.

The Lady Sooners, 24-5 and ranked 14th in this week’s AP Top 25, earned a share of their sixth Big 12 regular-season championship, rallying in the second half to beat Oklahoma State 80-71 in Stillwater on Saturday. OU outscored OSU 41-26 in the second half to secure the win and sweep the two-game Bedlam series with their in-state rivals. The regular-season conference crown is Oklahoma’s first since 2009

Oklahoma, seeking its fifth conference tournament championship and first under second-year head coach Jennie Baranczyk, will await the winner of the Thursday night matchup between No. 7 Kansas and No. 10 TCU. OU won both games with those two teams this season.

The Sooners’ quarterfinal matchup will be the first of two games in the night session on Thursday, beginning at 5 p.m. CT.

Baylor, the No. 6 seed in this year’s conference tournament, has won nine of the last 11 tournament championships. The last time the OU women were crowned conference champions was in 2007, a team coached by longtime Sooner head coach Sherri Coale. That team finished the season with a 22-9 record, 11-5 in the conference, and was the No. 5 seed in the conference tournament.

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