BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Oklahoma women's basketball knew what to expect from Florida Gulf Coast at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall on Saturday. A program well-versed in first-round NCAA Tournament upsets as a 12-seed, FGCU boasted a lineup of shooters, all capable of scoring in a variety of ways.
The Eagles were dangerous and, in the aftermath of a dramatic 73-70 win, Sooners coach Jennie Baranczyk confirmed they were as good as advertised.
“This was definitely a March Madness type of game,” Baranczyk said of the opening day brawl, which featured four lead changes over the final 10 minutes. “We’re pretty lucky to be on this side of this one.”
The markers of a potential upset appeared almost immediately with Florida Gulf Coast converting five of its first seven shots (four 3-pointers) as it took a commanding 14-point lead late in the frame.
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The Sooners were playing with their heads cut off, Baranczyk observed, crediting their Atlantic Sun opponent with rattling them on both ends of the floor. They had a plan in place for the Eagles' shooters, she said, but application from practice is easier said than done, while offensively OU was guilty of passing directly into the defense as its shooters struggled to find their rhythm into the second quarter (6-for-20).
The Sooners were playing hard, according to their coach, but they "weren't necessarily steady and able to read."
It was bad, it was ugly, but for a team with ample big-game experience, it was also motivating, freshman forward Sahara Williams said. "We've been down before."
“Way too comfortable (with playing from behind) is what she’s saying,” Baranczyk quickly interjected.
Williams grinned, then continued: "We don’t get down on ourselves. It set a fire under us. It’s March. Nobody wants to go home. We stayed together, played our game and did what we had to do.”
A situation that likely would have thrown a less-experienced team on full tilt was handled deftly by OU, which drew from the experience gained against a rigorous Big 12 schedule.
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They never feel like they're out of a game, senior guard Lexy Keys said, a credit to the team's leadership. "We just chip away. That's the mindset."
Applied to Saturday, the Sooners won the second quarter 18-10 — Williams scored nine points — to leave the halftime score at 35-33, then finally broke through to take their first lead of the game late in the third quarter with a 9-0 run that featured contributions from senior Skylar Vann (six points) and sophom*ore Reyna Scott.
"We're a really confident team and do a good job taking what the game gives us and staying in the flow of the game," Keys said. "We steadied up … our defense stepped up as a whole and that's what got us going."
The fourth quarter was akin to the March Madness Baranczyk alluded to at the beginning of her press conference with Keys, Vann, Aubrey Joens and Payton Verhulst teaming up to secure a 6-point lead for the Sooners with three minutes left, only for FGCU to reclaim the lead with 1:41 left.
But a tie-breaking jumper by Verhulst and a critical free throw by Vann — she missed the first, but converted the second and finished with a game-high 24 points — staked OU to a 3-point lead, one which it maintained after weathering one final furious flurry by FGCU.
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Nine different players scored for Oklahoma by game's end, with four different players — Verhulst, Vann, Joens and Keys — pouring in points in the fourth quarter.
"We stayed steady in the fourth quarter," said Williams, who tallied 14 points and five rebounds. "In these kinds of games, it's easy to go too high or too low and I thought we stayed (level) and that's really good for us to be able to gut that out."
Now OU steps into the underdog role looking to knock off No. 4-seed IU on its home floor. The Hoosiers knocked out No. 13-seed Fairfield, 89-56, in front of a near-sellout crowd.
"It's going to be a really fun environment," Keys said. "I'm excited to play against them and I think going into it, you have to have the mindset of benign 10 points down and be really aggressive."
OU vs. Indiana
TIPOFF:5:30 p.m. Monday at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind. (ESPN2)