The Oklahoma women's basketball team punched its ticket to the Sweet 16 on Monday, but head coach Jennie Baranczyk's biggest win of the week might have come the next day.
Aaliyah Chavez, the No. 1 women's basketball recruit in the 2025 class, announced live on SportsCenter her commitment to the Sooners on Tuesday afternoon. Her final six choices she chose from included OU, Texas, South Carolina, LSU, Texas Tech and UCLA, after narrowing down from over 100 reported offers.
"They have great coaches -- coaches that I've been talking to since I was in eighth grade -- and just a great playing style, they match how I want to play -- I wanna play fast -- and that's why I chose it," Chavez said on SportsCenter.
The No. 1 women's basketball recruit Aaliyah Chavez is heading to the Sooners‼️ @SCNext pic.twitter.com/3KFmnp7auI
— espnW (@espnW) March 25, 2025
— Oklahoma Basketball (@OU_WBBall) March 25, 2025
A point guard, Chavez is a consensus five-star recruit and every major recruiting service ranks her as the No.1 prospect in the entire 2025 class. Her 247Sports Composite score is a perfect 1.0000.
Chavez is also a McDonald's All American, Naismith Prep Player of the Year and two-time Gatorade Player of the Year.
Chavez just led Monterey High School in Lubbock, Texas, to a Texas Class 5A Division II state championship. According to MaxPreps, she averaged 34.9 points, 9.1 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 3.7 steals a game this season as a senior. In her career, Chavez averaged 32.1 points.
On Saturday, Chavez was at Lloyd Noble Center for the Sooners' 81-58 win over Florida Gulf Coast in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. That was her last visit only days before announcing her decision.
The Sooners went on to beat Iowa on Monday to make their first Sweet 16 since 2013 after earning hosting rights in Norman as the 3-seed in Regional 4. Next, OU will play the 2-seed UConn Huskies on Saturday.
This week sharply turned a corner for OU under Baranczyk, who's in her fourth season leading the program. The Sooners never completely fell from grace, but they definitely slipped among women's college basketball powerhouses.
Within a historical 24 hours, though, Baranczyk proved she has the Sooners climbing again toward the top of the mountain among UConn, South Carolina and Tennessee.
Chavez has been considered a generational talent and has the astronomical expectations to emerge as the face of women's basketball someday. Although an unfathomable task, Chavez could hoist OU up like Caitlin Clark did Iowa and JuJu Watkins is at USC.