Jennie Baranczyk’s Sooners are never out of any game.
Taking on No. 22 Louisville in the SEC/ACC Challenge, No. 11 Oklahoma dug itself a hole on Wednesday.
OU trailed by 12 points at halftime and by as many as 17 points in the first half, but the Sooners stormed all the way back in the second half to knock off the Cardinals 78-72 at the KFC Yum! Center.
Oklahoma first went on a 7-0 run to apply pressure on Louisville, then it pieced together a 9-0 run as the game approached its closing moments to take a lead.
Though the Sooners have struggled at the free throw line throughout the early phase of the season, OU hit clutch free throws to ice the win.
The 17-point comeback moved OU to 7-1 on the year, and it was the largest rally since the Sooners erased a 19-point deficit to beat Utah in 2021.
The Sooners nearly pulled off an unlikely outcome against No. 8 Duke, forcing overtime after clawing out massive deficit against the Blue Devils.
OU made its life difficult again on Wednesday.
Baranczyk’s team fell behind by as many as 17 in the first half, but Oklahoma never quit.
By limiting turnovers in the second half, the Sooners were able to set up defensively and lock Louisville down, eventually embarking on a 9-0 run to take the lead with 2:21 left in the game.
Jayda Curry’s deep jumper tied the game back up, but Payton Verhulst drilled a contested shot in the middle of the lane to regain the lead on her former team and put OU up 72-70 with 49 seconds left.
Guard Nevaeh Tot then sunk a pair of clutch free throws with 27 seconds left to seal the win in an unorthodox manner.
Erasing a massive deficit is usually the result of a late 3-point barrage, but the Sooners slowly chipped away by getting stops and tacking on 2’s on the other end of the floor to avoid dropping a second straight game.
Oklahoma should have been well out Wednesday’s contest in the first half.
The Sooners failed to take care of the basketball, committing 18 turnovers in the first half alone. Louisville initially wanted to slow the game down, but OU’s mistakes let the Cardinals get out and run.
And typically this season, the Sooners have been able to mitigate turnover issues with lockdown defense.
But OU struggled on the boards.
The Sooners surrendered 17 offensive rebounds, which Louisville converted to 12 second chance points.
Baranczyk’s team is one of the most explosive offenses in college basketball when firing on all cylinders, but the combination of turnovers and rebounds allowed the Cardinals to attempt 19 more shots from the field, which was almost too much for Oklahoma to overcome.
The Sooners were also thrown off by some different lineup combinations early.
Raegan Beers picked up her first foul two minutes into the game, prompting Baranczyk to go to the bench early and insert Liz Scott into the game.
Scott then got into foul trouble herself, leading to further mixing and matching in the lineups throughout the first half, and Oklahoma never appeared to get into rhythm.
Then an off night from last year’s Co-Big 12 Player of the Year Skylar Vann further complicated the Sooners’ efforts.
She didn’t hit her first shot until the 7:52 mark, heaping more pressure on her teammates to carry the scoring load early.
Verhulst, the Reigning SEC Player of the Week, carried momentum from her triple-double in OU’s last outing against Duke and led the charge with 21 points and seven rebounds, which held the Sooners over long enough to get back into the game.
Sahara Williams added 15 points and seven rebounds, and Beers finished with 11 points and 11 rebounds in the win.
