bluesooner17
Member
- Joined
- Mar 3, 2010
- Messages
- 863
- Reaction score
- 3
NORMAN — Some 20,000 feet above Texas, Maddie Manning couldn’t sleep.
The Oklahoma women’s basketball team had just lost by four points to TCU, a team it had beaten by 13 less than three weeks earlier. The Sooners had a sub-. 500 record and were just 5-5 in the Big 12.
With time quickly running out on her final year of eligibility, Manning wanted to make a change.
She turned around in her seat and looked down the aisle of the plane, searching for Vionise Pierre-Louis. The two had a tight bond, formed when they both began their careers on the same team in practice, going against the starters every day.
When Manning saw that Pierre-Louis’ overhead light was still on, she slipped out of her seat and went back to talk with the center.
That conversation on Jan. 27 sparked a change that’s rippled throughout the women’s basketball team and vaulted the Sooners to No. 3 in Big 12 standings with just two games left in the regular season. Thanks to the shift in mentality led by OU’s seniors, the team enters Saturday’s home finale against Texas Tech (noon, FSOK) playing their best basketball of the season.
“I think the seniors had a mindset, like we can’t go anywhere but up from here,” Pierre-Louis said. “We’ve been to the bottom, we’ve been losing consecutive games. We have a shaky record. So we can only go up from here.
“That’s the mentality us seniors brought to every single practice and then that triggered juniors, triggered sophomores, triggered freshmen and then we all came together. It’s all or nothing. We can go all in and finish it out as best we can or we lose everything.”
Since the conversation on the flight back from Fort Worth, the Sooners (15-12, 10-6 Big 12) have won five of their last six games, with the lone loss coming at No. 3 Baylor.
To spur the turnaround, Manning and the seniors implored their team to communicate better and to strive for improvement in every single practice and in every single quarter during a game.
The increased communication helped the Sooners improve their defense. In those five wins, OU has held its opponents to shooting just 35.1 percent from the floor and 61.2 points per game.
“I feel like if we’re connected, then we can guard anything,” freshman Ana Llanusa said.
The Sooners also benefitted from a spread out schedule in the last couple of weeks. After playing two games per week for most of the conference schedule, OU had just two games in a 12-day stretch before Saturday’s game against Texas Tech (7-20, 1-15).
“A lot of other teams were playing these past three weeks, and we only had one game a week,” Llanusa said. “I think that was big time for us to grow and just grow in defense, grow in offense, and grow all together. Really learned how to connect with each other.”
With just two games left before the Big 12 Tournament, the Sooners are using this newfound connection to make a final push for an NCAA Tournament bid. They weren’t on ESPNW analyst Charlie Creme’s bracket prediction for most of conference play, but they’re listed among the first four teams out in his latest edition.
OU can clinch the No. 3 seed in the Big 12 Tournament with a win on Saturday and an Oklahoma State loss at West Virginia.
Though the ultimate goal is making the postseason, the team is taking time to celebrate its transformation.
“The beauty of it is, you’ve seen us become a team, people looking on the outside in,” Manning said. “I think that’s awesome. We’ve had young people that had to learn and contribute and now we’re all catching up on the same page, learning to play off each other. I think it’s beautiful.”
The Oklahoma women’s basketball team had just lost by four points to TCU, a team it had beaten by 13 less than three weeks earlier. The Sooners had a sub-. 500 record and were just 5-5 in the Big 12.
With time quickly running out on her final year of eligibility, Manning wanted to make a change.
She turned around in her seat and looked down the aisle of the plane, searching for Vionise Pierre-Louis. The two had a tight bond, formed when they both began their careers on the same team in practice, going against the starters every day.
When Manning saw that Pierre-Louis’ overhead light was still on, she slipped out of her seat and went back to talk with the center.
That conversation on Jan. 27 sparked a change that’s rippled throughout the women’s basketball team and vaulted the Sooners to No. 3 in Big 12 standings with just two games left in the regular season. Thanks to the shift in mentality led by OU’s seniors, the team enters Saturday’s home finale against Texas Tech (noon, FSOK) playing their best basketball of the season.
“I think the seniors had a mindset, like we can’t go anywhere but up from here,” Pierre-Louis said. “We’ve been to the bottom, we’ve been losing consecutive games. We have a shaky record. So we can only go up from here.
“That’s the mentality us seniors brought to every single practice and then that triggered juniors, triggered sophomores, triggered freshmen and then we all came together. It’s all or nothing. We can go all in and finish it out as best we can or we lose everything.”
Since the conversation on the flight back from Fort Worth, the Sooners (15-12, 10-6 Big 12) have won five of their last six games, with the lone loss coming at No. 3 Baylor.
To spur the turnaround, Manning and the seniors implored their team to communicate better and to strive for improvement in every single practice and in every single quarter during a game.
The increased communication helped the Sooners improve their defense. In those five wins, OU has held its opponents to shooting just 35.1 percent from the floor and 61.2 points per game.
“I feel like if we’re connected, then we can guard anything,” freshman Ana Llanusa said.
The Sooners also benefitted from a spread out schedule in the last couple of weeks. After playing two games per week for most of the conference schedule, OU had just two games in a 12-day stretch before Saturday’s game against Texas Tech (7-20, 1-15).
“A lot of other teams were playing these past three weeks, and we only had one game a week,” Llanusa said. “I think that was big time for us to grow and just grow in defense, grow in offense, and grow all together. Really learned how to connect with each other.”
With just two games left before the Big 12 Tournament, the Sooners are using this newfound connection to make a final push for an NCAA Tournament bid. They weren’t on ESPNW analyst Charlie Creme’s bracket prediction for most of conference play, but they’re listed among the first four teams out in his latest edition.
OU can clinch the No. 3 seed in the Big 12 Tournament with a win on Saturday and an Oklahoma State loss at West Virginia.
Though the ultimate goal is making the postseason, the team is taking time to celebrate its transformation.
“The beauty of it is, you’ve seen us become a team, people looking on the outside in,” Manning said. “I think that’s awesome. We’ve had young people that had to learn and contribute and now we’re all catching up on the same page, learning to play off each other. I think it’s beautiful.”