Life just got a lot harder for the Oklahoma Sooners. Head coach Patty Gasso will make sure of that.
Less than two weeks after sweeping Georgia in Norman, the No. 1 Sooners fell to the Bulldogs 10-5 in the quarterfinals of the SEC Softball Tournament on Thursday in Lexington, Kentucky, after squandering the biggest lead in the tournament's history. OU had earned byes in the first two rounds as the regular-season champion, so is headed back to Norman after only one game, during which it led 5-0 at one point.
Patty Gasso delivers Sooners a wake-up call after loss to Georgia
After the disappointing loss, Gasso was crystal clear what the next week will entail for her team before the NCAA Tournament starts next weekend, when the Sooners should be hosting a regional at Love's Field. Gasso was also brutally honest that her team isn't meeting expectations right now heading into the most important part of the season.
"I think we all had a conversation and decided to go back to Norman and just practice harder, do things sharper -- like clean up practice instead of going through the motions like we've got it," Gasso said. "Let's really, really press. We’re gonna press you everyday throughout the entire practice to the point of exhaustion. And you should keep asking for more. And more and more and more. Until your hands bleed.
"That’s the mentality that we want our players to have instead of, like, 'Oh, we're good. We're good.' No, we're not good. And we showed that. And so that is going to be our approach is we're going back and we are going to work as hard as we ever have in a short window to have ourselves prepared for a home regional."
The Sooners have proven before that falling short in the conference tournament doesn't erase national title hopes. They also learned that lesson the hard way just last year.
Last season, after claiming the regular-season title and being deemed co-champions of the SEC Softball Tournament in their first year in the conference, the Sooners came up short at the Women's College World Series to Texas, a team that just a few weeks before had lost in the semis of the same conference tournament as OU.
In 2022, it was OU that lost to Bedlam rival Oklahoma State in the Big 12 Softball Tournament. Despite being runners-up in their conference tournament, though, the Sooners still went on to win their second of four national titles in a row.
It was certainly a disappointing outcome for the Sooners, but it wasn't the end of the season and Gasso knows better than any coach in the country what it takes to still reach the ultimate goal. And Gasso's postgame statement is assurance the Sooners will spend the next week doing what it takes and then some to get it done.
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