By Clay Horning
Before the season began, the Oklahoma women thought they might return to the Final Four. Those hopes took a serious blow when Whitney Hand lost her season to a torn anterior cruciate ligament in late November.
Nonetheless, the Sooners got through the season with a 23-10 record, a No. 8 RPI thanks to a very difficult schedule and a No. 12 ranking in the final Associated Press Top 25, all of which added up to a what was announced Monday evening.
OU will return to its home court at Lloyd Noble Center for the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament as the No. 3 seed in the Kansas City Regional, and will begin tournament play around 8:45 p.m. Sunday against South Dakota State, tournament champion of the Summit League.
"It looks like a pretty good bracket," Sooner point guard Danielle Robinson said.
That's the thing.
It looks like an extremely good bracket for the Sooners. So good, perhaps, that if they can get through two rounds on their home floor, as they should, the Final Four might be a very real possibility indeed.
If OU can get past the No. 14-seed Jackrabbits (23-10), they will face the winner of Sunday's 6:16 p.m. tip between No. 6-seed Georgia Tech (23-9) and No. 11-seed Arkansas-Little Rock (26-6) at a time to be determined a week from today.
And if the Sooners can win that game, they would very likely face No. 2-seed Notre Dame in Kansas City. A victory there would push OU into the regional final, quite possibly against No. 1-seed Nebraska (30-1).
It's those top two seeds that got the Sooners' attention upon learning of their Big Dance draw. OU has played and lost to both the Irish and the Huskers, but would relish a rematch with both.
"It think it's a good place for us," team captain and starting forward Amanda Thompson said. "We've got a couple of teams in our bracket that we've played before and it would be a nice matchup again."
OU fell 81-71 to Notre Dame the day after Hand was lost for the season. The game was played at the Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands. After learning how to play without Hand all season since, and coming off a championship-game run at the Big 12 Tournament, making up 10 points on the Irish shouldn't come across as an impossible leap.
Back on Feb. 24, OU lost 80-64 to Nebraska, yet the score was misleading. The Sooners led by a point with less than 4 minutes to play on a day they missed16 layups.
"We felt like if we'd made just a few shots in that one, the outcome could have been different," OU coach Sherri Coale said.
So, should OU reach Kansas City, it might be very familiar with its opponents. Also in the Sooners' favor, the games will be fairly close to home. That's great news considering OU's fan base has always traveled well.
"I love the fact that we're staying in the Midwest," Coale said. "Really love the fact that if we play well enough to win two at Lloyd Noble Center we can go to Kansas City."
Of course, the Jackrabbits come first.
South Dakota State clipped Oral Roberts in its tourney final. Beyond that, OU knows very little. Today, the education should begin.
