Kansas City, Mo ? In her four previous trips to the Big 12 women’s basketball tournament as Oklahoma’s coach, Sherri Coale hadn’t been to a postgame press conference with dry eyes.
But Coale, who engineered the Sooners’ amazing worst-to-first turnaround, snapped a four-game tourney losing streak in convincing fashion Wednesday, shifting the teary-eyed onus to Kansas, 80-61, at Municipal Auditorium.
“This is the first time in Kansas City that I didn’t have to shed tears,” Coale said after the seventh-ranked, top-seeded Sooners became the last Big 12 team to win a tournament game. “We’re glad that it’s over. The first tournament I brought one outfit. This year, I packed them all.”
If Wednesday’s game was any indication, she might need all her threads.
Top-seeded Oklahoma which entered as a No. 12 seed in Coale’s first season, 1996-97 hit 61.5 percent of its first-half field goals, drained 10 of 24 three-pointers and outrebounded KU by 14 to bring the Jayhawks’ season to a screeching halt.
KU finished 12-17, its worst record since going 11-16 in 1983-84.
“They played a great ball game,” said Kansas coach Marian Washington, who struggled to choke back the tears and had to take a break in her postgame comments to collect her composure. “They’ve done a great job all season. In the locker room, I focused on my seniors. I’m the luckiest coach in America. These are three wonderful women. If not for them, this would have been a tough year. They fought every game. I’m just sad about them leaving.”
As they have all season, Kansas’ senior trio of Jaclyn Johnson, Jennifer Jackson and Brooke Reves carried the Jayhawks’ Wednesday. Johnson scored a game-high 21 points and had a team-high nine rebounds. Jackson had 11 points, and Reves added 10 before fouling out.
“We just didn’t have enough,” Washington said. “Bottom line, we just didn’t have enough.”
But not for want of trying.
Oklahoma (25-4) bolted to leads of 13-2 and 32-14 before settling for a 40-26 halftime edge.
Then the Jayhawks, who hit 53.8 percent of their second-half field goals after connecting on just 34.5 percent before the break, made a run.
Johnson’s bucket at 12:22 cut the deficit to eight, at 51-43, and Reves answered an OU score at 11:31 to maintain that deficit.
But Kansas had two turnovers in its next three possessions, and with 8:46 to play Rosalina Ross who came off the bench to score a team-high 17 points drained three free throws for a 59-47 Oklahoma advantage.
KU never managed to whittle the deficit to single digits again.
“When we got it to eight, we were very confident,” Jackson said. “We made a good run. We had two chances to cut the lead even closer, but we couldn’t capitalize. We needed to capitalize on those trips down the floor.”
Oklahoma had 41 rebounds to Kansas’ 27, 19 second-chance points to Kansas’ 10 and had 11 fast-break points to Kansas’ zero.
Heck, the Sooners had more offensive rebounds (21) than Kansas had defensive rebounds (17), and they held the Jayhawks to just one offensive rebound after halftime.
Kansas, which needed to win the Big 12 tournament to make it to the NCAA Tournament, had its streak of NCAAs appearances halted at nine.
“It’s been very difficult,” Washington said of the trying season. “It seemed like everything happened to us at the start of the season. We lost a player to injury, we lost a player to homesickness. You hope not to be in this situation, and fortunately I haven’t had too many of them. But this, too, shall pass.”
In addition to Ross, three other Sooners scored in double figures. Big 12 player of the year Stacey Dales and Sunny Hardeman each scored 12, and LaNeishea Caufield added 10. Dales also had seven of OU’s 23 assists.
The Sooners will face Colorado in a semifinal today.
Three-point goals: 2-6 (Jackson 1-1, Hilgenkamp 1-4, Johhson 0-1). Assists: 11 (Jackson 4, Geoffroy 3, Reves, White, Hilgenkamp, Scott). Turnovers: 18 (Reves 6, Johnson 3, Hilgenkamp 2, Jackson 2, Geoffroy 2, White, Scott, Brown). Blocked shots: 5 (Johnson 3, Reves, Geoffroy). Steals: 6 (Reves 2, Johnson, Hilgenkamp, Jackson, Scott). |
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Three-point goals: 10-24 (Ross 4-5, Hardeman 4-10, Caufield 2-4, Hill 0-1, Dales 0-3). Assists: 23 (Dales 7, Hardeman 6, Caufield 4, Hill 3, Talbert 2, Ross. Turnovers: 17 (Ross 3, Talbert 3, Hill 2, Caufield 2, Dales 2, Luce 2, Hardeman, Britt, team). Blocked shots: 1 (Talbert). Steals: 4 (Talbert 2, Dales, Ross). |
Kansas | 26 | 35 | 61 |
Oklahoma | 40 | 40 | 80 |