OU Travels To Second-Place Missouri

NORMAN, Okla. -- History will be on the line Saturday as the Oklahoma women's basketball team (18-4, 8-0) attempts to tie its own Big 12 record, (set in 2000) for the best start in conference history at 9-0. More importantly, a win over second-place Missouri (16-4, 6-2) would put at least a three-game cushion between the Sooners and every other team in the conference.

The Tigers and Sooners will square off at Mizzou Arena at 5 p.m. on Saturday. The game is being broadcast by the Missouri Sports Network with Dan McLaughlin (play-by-play) and Beau Baehman (color commentary) and will be simulcast to Oklahoma by Sooner Sports Properties. Fans in Oklahoma City can catch the game on KAUT-UPN (Cox channel 16) and those in Tulsa can watch the broadcast on Cox channel 78.

OU has won six straight games dating back to a Jan. 9 loss at Ohio State. The eight-game Big 12 winning streak is well short of the OU record for consecutive league wins. That mark of 14 was set in 2000-01 when OU started 1-1 before reeling off 14 straight wins en route to the regular season championship.

Game Notes | OU Stats | Paris On Wooden List

Missouri has won 11 straight home games, all this season, which is currently the longest streak in the Big 12. That might actually be good news for the Sooners, who have become adept at snapping double-digit home winning streaks. In OU's last two road games it has snapped the previous league best streaks at Texas A&M (13) and Baylor (25). OU has also ended home court streaks of 21 at Iowa State and 16 at New Mexico.

After the trip north, OU returns to Norman for a two-game home stand that opens with Kansas on Wednesday, Feb. 8. The home stand will close with defending National Champion Baylor in what is expected to be a sellout on Sunday, Feb. 12.

Player To Watch
As Oklahoma stands one win shy of tying its best ever start to Big 12 play, freshman Courtney Paris also stands one game away from a Big 12 record. The rookie phenom has collected 19 double-doubles this season and needs one to tie the conference single season record of 20 set by Angie Wells of Iowa State in 2001-02. Paris has also tallied a double-double in 14 consecutive contests, which is already an OU and Big 12 record.

Setting The Scene
Date: Saturday, Feb. 4, 2006
Location: Columbia, Mo.
Tipoff: 5 p.m CST
Venue: Mizzou Arena (15,061)
TV: KAUT-UPN (OKC), Cox channel 78 (Tulsa)
TV Talent: Dan McLaughlin (play-by-play) & Beau Baehman
Webcast: None
Radio: KOKC (1520 AM)
Radio Talent: Brian Brinkley (Play-by-Play) & Tara DeGiusti
Tickets: (573) 884-7297

Sooner Sports Network TV Affiliates
Oklahoma City - KAUT UPN (Cox channel 16)
Tulsa - Cox channel 78

Bedlam Leftovers
(AP) Courtney Paris continued her run of double-doubles with 17 points and 12 rebounds and No. 11 Oklahoma beat Oklahoma State 70-54 Tuesday night for its 15th straight win over its in-state rival.

The double-double was the 14th straight for Paris, the longest current streak in NCAA Division I women's basketball, and the 19th of the season for the freshman center, also tops in the nation.

Oklahoma (18-4, 8-0 Big 12) won its sixth straight game - a stretch that includes a road win over defending national champion Baylor - and is one win shy of matching its best start ever in conference play. The Sooners started 9-0 in league play during the 1999-2000 season.

The Sooners' ranking is their highest since the final poll of the 2001-2002 season, when Oklahoma, the national runner-up that season, was No. 2.

Oklahoma State (6-14, 0-9) has lost 16 straight games against Big 12 teams, including conference tournament matchups. The Cowgirls, who lost by 34 points to Oklahoma in Stillwater on Jan. 14, haven't beaten Oklahoma since the 1999 Big 12 tournament.

Oklahoma didn't shoot particularly well Tuesday, finishing at 47.5 percent from the field, and the Sooners committed 16 turnovers. But the Cowgirls struggled even more, shooting 32.1 percent and committing 18 turnovers.

Whitney Pegram had 18 points and eight rebounds and Shaunte Smith scored 15 for Oklahoma State, which outscored the Sooners by eight at the free-throw line.

Postgame Notes
The attendance of 7,024 is the 18th best Lloyd Noble Center turnout in OU women's basketball history.
Britney Brown, who had 11 points and four assists against the Cowgirls, is averaging 9.0 points in Big 12 play this season. That average is 5.5 points better than her non-conference scoring output of 3.5.
Courtney Paris claimed the OU single-season record for defensive rebounds with nine against OU, for a new season total of 221. She passed Caton Hill, who had 219 in 2000-01.
Paris moved into third place on the OU single season rebounds list with 12, which increased her season total to 323. Paris passed Caton Hill, who had 315 boards in 2000-01. In the Big 12 all-time ranks she also passed Caton Hill for the sixth best single-season rebound total in conference history.
Chelsi Welch, who has averaged 12.8 over the last 10 games, collected 12 points tonight. Welch is averaging 11.9 points in Big 12 play this season. Welch averaged 7.1 PPG prior to league play.

Big 12 History
The Oklahoma Sooners went 8-8 in the Big 12 last season and finished in a tie for sixth place. All-time, OU has a 90-63 (.588) Big 12 record under head coach Sherri Coale. The Sooners have won three regular season titles (2000, 2001, 2002) and two conference tournaments (2002, 2004). The Sooners were picked to finish fourth in the Big 12 Coaches Preseason Poll this season, behind No. 1 Baylor, No. 2 Texas and No. 3 Texas Tech.

Oklahoma is 8-0 in conference, which is its second best start to Big 12 play. The best start in program history was 9-0 in 1999-2000. OU's longest conference winning streak is 14, set during the 2000-01 season.

Overall, OU is 50-26 (.657) in Big 12 games played at the Lloyd Noble Center and 40-37 (.519) in conference road contests.

Junior Leah Rush was named to the Coaches Preseason All-Big 12 Team and freshman Courtney Paris was selected by the coaches as the Preseason Freshman of the Year.

Missouri Tidbits
Missouri was picked to finish 10th in the Big 12 Coaches Preseason Poll and has certainly outdone those expectations. The Tigers are alone in second place with a 6-2 record and have posted an impressive 16-4 overall mark. MU enters the Saturday contest with an 11-game home winning streak.

Missouri is 128-101 in eight seasons under head coach Cindy Stein. Stein has led the Tigers to postseason play in five of the last six seasons.

On the court the Tigers are led by senior point guard LaToya Bond, who is seventh in the Big 12 with 17.5 points per game. Bond is also second in the Big 12 in steals (2.35) and third in free throw percentage (.859). Tiger center Christelle N'Garsanet is averaging 12.8 PPG and 8.3 RPG, which ranks eighth in the Big 12. Also scoring in double figures is Carlynn Savant at 11.5 PPG. Currently, Savant is shooting an NCAA best 51.2 percent from long range and has made 43-of-84 attempts.

Missouri has lost to Texas and Texas A&M in league play this season. A&M defeated the Tigers by 20 in College Station, while the Longhorns won by nine in Austin.

Leah Rush and Erin Higgins have averaged 10-plus points against Missouri. Rush has tallied 15.5 points in two career contests and has shot 61.9 from the floor against the Tigers. Higgins has averaged 15 PPG against MU with all of the those scores coming from three-point range. She has made 50 (10-20) percent of the her career attempts against MU, including a career best six treys in 2005.

Mizzou leads the all-time series with OU, 28-20. OU has won four of the last five, but lost in its last trip to Columbia in 2004 (77-65). All-time OU is 6-14 in Columbia.

Pregame Layups
Cindy Stein coached Chelsi Welch on the Big 12 All Star Team that competed in the 2003 World University Games ... Laura Andrews is third in the Big 12 in 3-point percentage (.455) since the start of league play ... Erin Higgins is No.1 in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.57) and Britney Brown is No. 5 (1.9) in Big 12 games ... Brown (.519) and Welch (.460) are also sixth and 13th in FG percentage, respectively, since Big 12 action began.

Board Work
Oklahoma is the top team in the Big 12 in terms of rebounding margin at +11.2 and ranked fourth nationally as of Jan. 31. OU is averaging 44.0 rebounds per game as compared to the opponents 32.8. In 22 games, OU has out-rebounded opponents by double figures on 14 occasions, including five of eight Big 12 games this season. The season high was a +36 effort against SMU. Connecticut and Michigan State are the only teams to out-rebound the Sooners this season.

WhiteOUt Sellout?
Oklahoma athletics officials are planning a “WhiteOUt the Lloyd Noble Center” promotion whereby every ticketholder will be given a “Cheer Like a Champion” T-shirt at the Sunday, Feb. 12 game against Baylor. The T-shirts will be provided by Carl's Jr., Hudiburg Auto Group and USA Screen Printing. All fans are encouraged to wear the shirts upon arriving at their seats. The promotion was a hit for this year's men's basketball victory over Texas.

Pre-game sales for the contest have already surpassed 8,000 and the OU Ticket Office is expecting the game to sellout. Fans that usually purchase tickets when they arrive at the arena are strongly encouraged to purchase tickets in advance by calling (800) 456-GoOU or by visiting the online ticket office on SoonerSports.com.

Additionally, the Athletics Department is also expecting near sellout crowds for the final two home games of the year - Feb. 18 against Texas A&M and senior night on March 1 against Nebraska. Again fans are asked to purchase tickets in advance of game day to guarantee entrance into the event.

A Little Bit of RPI Love
The NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Committee released the first official Ratings Percentage Indexes (RPI) and the Oklahoma women's basketball team is slated at No. 6. OU trails the consensus top-5 in the major polls despite being ranked No. 11 in the Associate Press Poll and No. 13 in the USA Today/Coaches Poll.

Oklahoma is slated behind (in order) Tennessee, Connecticut, North Carolina, LSU and Duke. Baylor is ranked No. 9 and is the only other Big 12 Team in the top-10.

The official RPI is used as one of many tools to select teams to participate in the championships. Developed in 1981, the RPI provides supplemental data in the evaluation of teams for at-large selection and seeding of the championship bracket is only one of many pieces of information available to the committees. Qualitative factors such as games missed by student-athletes or coaches and a team's performance in the latter portion of the season cannot be reliably measured by a statistical model. However, such factors are among the details of each team considered by the committees.

A Bigger Story
While Oklahoma leads the Big 12 overall stats in five categories, it has really set itself apart in the conference only numbers. The Sooners rank No.1 in nine categories and only rank lower than five in two areas (steals and turnover margin). The Sooners worst category is turnover margin (10th) yet they still manage to be No. 2 in assist-to-turnover ratio at 1.11.

Sports Illustrated And the Twins
After being cited each of the last two weeks in Sports Illustrated's Who Hot's' column, the Oklahoma women's basketball team and freshman twins Courtney and Ashley Paris will be featured in a three-page story by Kelli Anderson. The piece is slated for the Feb. 6 Super Bowl preview issue, which hits news stands on Wednesday.

Anderson spent nearly five days with the OU team beginning on Jan. 18 when OU hosted Texas Tech and concluding with the trip home from a buzzer-beating defeat of defending National Champion Baylor. Head coach Sherri Coale gave Anderson full access to the program, which included the invitation to be on hand in OU's locker room during pre and post-game activities.

Anderson spent several hours interviewing Paris twins and their teammates. She also interviewed Courtney and Ashley's parents, Lynne Harris and Bubba Paris.

Sports Illustrated also employed freelance photographer Darren Carroll and his assistant Andrew Loehman for a number of photo shoots with the freshmen. In addition to shooting OU's game against Texas with five different cameras, Carroll set up three off-the-court shoots. The first location was in the Kerr McGee Courtside Club, the second was in the OU Legacy Lobby and the final images were taken at the third-floor lounge in the Bud Wilkinson Dorms.

90 & 50
Oklahoma became the fourth team in the Big 12 to claim 90 regular season conference victories with its defeat of Oklahoma State on Jan. 31. The win was also the 50th conference triumph at the Lloyd Noble Center for OU. Only Texas Tech, Texas and Iowa State have more regular season league wins than OU.

Home Court Advantage
OU has posted an 8-1 record on its home floor, the Lloyd Noble Center, this season and a 85-19 (.817) mark since the start of the 1998-99 season.

Records Set
Below are the records that freshman Courtney Paris has set in 22 games:
* Owns the OU freshman rebounding record with 323 boards and counting.
* Owns the OU single season record with 19 double-doubles.
* Owns the OU single season record with 221 defensive rebounds and counting.
* In the midst of OU record streak of 13 consecutive double-doubles.
* The fastest player to 100, 200, 300 and 400 points in OU history, she needed five games to eclipse the century mark and 10 to reach 200,14 to reach 300 and 20 for 400.
* The fastest player to 100, 200 and 300 rebounds in OU history, she needed nine games to reach the century mark, 14 to reach 200 and 21 for 300.
* Set an OU record by becoming the first player to score 10 or more points in the first 22 games of their career, which is the third best streak in program history.
* Set an OU freshman single game record with 22 rebounds against UCLA.
* Tied an OU single game freshman scoring record with 32 points against Texas. She shares the honor with LaNeishea Caufield (1999 vs. Missouri).
* Owns the best 10-game freshman scoring average, 21.0, in OU history (previous was 13.2 by Angie Guffy, 1991-92).
* Owns the best 10-game freshman rebounding average, 13.6, in OU history (previous was 8 by Angie Guffy, 1991-92).
* Set an OU record by becoming the first player to record a double-double in the first three games of her career.
* Set an OU record by recording double figure rebounds in the first three games of her career.
* Owns the second-best single season block total with 71 blocks.
* Set an OU freshman debut record with 24 points in the opener against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
* Set a Preseason WNIT single game record with 20 rebounds in the second round game against SMU. Also set the tournament rebound record with 54 total boards in four games.
* No. 4 on the OU career double-double list with 19.
* Set Big 12 record with seven weekly awards in the same season. Also tied Big 12 record with five Big 12 Rookie of the Week awards this season.

NCAA Impact
Courtney Paris is putting together one of the best freshman seasons in NCAA history and if she continues her current pace the record books will show it. Stretched out over a 31-game season, which includes the regular season and one Big 12 tournament game, she is on pace to collect 456 rebounds, which would top the current record of 443 by Ida Johnson (Delta State, 1982). She is also on pace for the sixth best scoring season by a rookie in NCAA history. Her projected total is 651, which would fall just short of the top five that is headlined by Tennessee legend Tamika Catchings at No. 3 with 711. She is also on pace to set the NCAA freshman blocks record with a projected total of 100.

What Brown Can do For OU
Junior point guard Britney Brown's improved play since the start of the Big 12 season has been a major factor in OU's surge to the top of the league standings. Brown is averaging 9.0 points and 4.8 assists per game in Big 12 play. Both marks trump her non-conference averages (3.5 and 2.8) by hefty margins (5.5 in points, 2.0 in assists). The Norman native has taken advantage of opponents sagging defense by increasing her offensive output, especially lately when she has scored in double figures in three straight games for the first time in her career.

Guess Who's Back
It was a hot topic of conversation leading up to the 2005-06 season; whether or not Chelsi Welch would be able to return to the form that earned her Co-Big 12 Freshman of the Year honors in 2002-03.

The junior has reestablished herself as a consistent scoring threat in the last 10 games. She has reemerged to average 12.8 points and 4.2 rebounds during the run. Welch has tallied 66 percent (128-of-195) of her points this season in the last 10 games.

Welch refound her stroke at the right time for OU. The Sooners were coming off a two-game losing streak, during which the missing piece was a secondary scorer alongside freshman phenom Courtney Paris. Coincidentally, the 10-game outburst coincided with her return to the starting lineup. She started the first four games of the year before coming off the bench in the next eight contests.

Welch tore the Anterior Cruciate Ligament in her left knee prior to her sophomore season (2003-04). She returned last year to average 5.9 points and 2.2 rebounds per game As a freshman she averaged 12.1 points and 3.7 rebounds per game.

The Best of All-Time
It was only a matter of time before Erin Higgins took the spot at the top. On January 7th she became the OU career leader in 3-pointers made by knocking down two against Colorado and setting her career mark at 176. She has since increased the total to 190.

Higgins hit five 3-pointers against Iowa State on Jan. 4, to move into a first place tie with Etta Maytubby on the OU career list. Both players had 174 career treys, although it took Higgins 84 less attempts to reach the mark. Now the Oklahoma City native has the remainder of this season and next year to build on the record.

Higgins is also fourth in career 3-point percentage at 38.2 (190-498). She recently set an OU record of 19 consecutive games with a three-pointer. At her current pace, Higgins will finish her career with 296 treys.

Higgins Lights It Up From Outside
Erin Higgins has already knocked down 56 three-pointers this season and is shooting 42.4 (56-132) percent from long distance. The hot start is an improvement over last season when she made 37 percent (67-181) on the year and ranked 14th in the Big 12.

Charity Worker
Junior Chelsi Welch made her first 25 free throws this season to extend her career best streak to 28 consecutive free throws dating back to the Kansas State game on Feb. 13, 2005. She missed her eighth attempt against Oral Roberts but finished the game 11-12 from the charity stripe. The streak was three short of breaking into the NCAA records books as one of the top-20 streaks of all-time.

On the season she is 68-72 with a Big 12 leading 94.4 percentage, which led the NCAA as of Jan. 31. Welch has also had a streak of 23 straight makes this season.

For her career, Welch is an 85.8 (193-225) shooter, which is the best mark in OU history. She isn't the only exceptional free throw shooter on the OU squad. Leah Rush is shooting at an 81.7 (210-257) percentage, which is currently the third best mark in OU history. Krista Sanchez and Erin Higgins also have career percentages of 70 percent or better.

University of Oklahoma Athletics

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