In facing off tomorrow night for a spot in the Sweet 16, UCLA and Oklahoma look like opposites, on paper.
The guard-heavy Bruins feature a star senior in Charisma Osborne, and five talented freshmen, lead by scoring machine Kiki Rice, who were the No. 2 recruiting class coming into the program. With eight newcomers, they worked to learn each other, and had some stumbles in the midst of Pac-12 play. But in the conference tournament they took down favorite Stanford in the semifinals to advance to the championship game, where they lost to Washington State.
Against Big Sky champs Sacramento State in game 1 of the NCAA Tournament last night, UCLA played looser and more relaxed than they had all season in running to a 67-45 win. All but one of the 10 who took the floor scored, and they executed and defended consistently from wire to wire.
The Sooners feature a veteran trio that has played together for five years under two different coaches: Madi Williams, Taylor Robertson and Ana Llanusa. They have a cast that can shoot the lights out, and which is excellent in transition.
In the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament, Oklahoma stumbled. Against Portland in the first round this weekend, they let the Pilots’ defense stifle their rhythm, and it took until the second half of the game for them to lock in and play their own game. The Sooners won, 85-63.
Both teams have been ranked most of the season, and have almost identical records. But the Bruins played South Dakota State and Tennessee early, and then took No. 1 South Carolina to the limit before the national championships pulled out the win. Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk said that changes the kind of team that their opponents are.
“I don’t know if you can actually count UCLA’s freshmen as freshmen, so let’s be real…..they are so talented,” Baranczyk said. “We are not going into this game saying, we have experience and therefore we are just going to show up and the experience takes care of itself. You’ve got to work, and it’s March, and anybody can do anything.”
She said sometimes there’s a benefit for younger players in “just playing.”
“That’s where I’m hoping in this game tomorrow, it’s going to be a great game for women’s basketball, but it’s not a youth versus experience. What (the Bruins) have had as experience is pretty…
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