Coale, Sooners Discuss Upcoming Season

Oct. 19, 2011

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Big 12 Conference saved its best for last as the Oklahoma women's basketball team took center stage at media day in the final hour of the afternoon session at the Sprint Center.

The topics of conversation were how OU would look after the graduation of its two-time All-American point guard Danielle Robinson and how the health of Whitney Hand has rebounded with her getting to rest her surgically-repaired knee.

"I think it will be different, definitely, than last year," OU head coach Sherri Coale said about predicting the team's style of play, "because the one thing we will not have is Danielle Robinson creating about 10 points a game in transition just because nobody is fast enough to get in front of the basketball. That's gone.

"While we'll get somebody else to play the point, it will not be in that manner. Any of the candidates that we have -- that is not their M.O. We'll figure out what the best form of that is for this year's particular team."

Big 12 Media Days Central | Coale Press Conference |

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The Sooners won't just be replacing their leading scorer, but the player who served as its on-court leader. Assuming the bulk of that responsibility will be Hand.

"If there was a poster child for Oklahoma women's basketball, I'd probably want it to be Whitney Hand," Coale said. "Her greatest gift is she makes the guys around her better."

Hand experienced her first offseason since tearing her ACL in November 2010. The junior returned to the Sooners' lineup at midseason with a career game, but admitted to never feeling better than "80 percent."

"She looks much more like the Whitney Hand that you guys saw as a true freshman," Coale continued. "I don't think any of us, even those of us on the inside knew the pain she was in last year, I don't know that any of us really realized how difficult that is to play through.

"What I see know, is a kid who is really comfortable in her own skin as a basketball player again. I don't think she was ever comfortable at any moment last year, not physically or mentally, because they're all connected, obviously.

"When you have eight underclassmen on your team, her presence becomes more important and her play even more integral."

Whitney Hand on Health of Knee | Aaryn Ellenberg on Replacing Point Guard

Coale enters her 16th season as the Oklahoma head coach with one of her most inexperienced rosters. Of OU's 12 active players, two-thirds are freshmen and sophomores.

"They're just earnest. I can't think of a better word to describe, particularly, this freshman class. They want to do things right. They want to play well. They each have individual strengths that set them apart and differentiate one from another."

Coale singled out Sharane Campbell as someone who may be the surprise of the group due to a recruitment extending only regionally.

"Across the country, (she) won't be a household name. But, I'll tell you...she's really going to be special. She's just been really, really fun to watch grow in the first couple weeks that we've been together."

Oklahoma presses on to its opening night adjusting to its most radical personnel shifts since the Paris twins arrived in Norman. However, the goals for the Sooners have not been altered.

"The expectation is that we'll play for a national championship," Hand said, "and until proven otherwise, we'll be working towards that and getting better every day."

University of Oklahoma Athletics

Coale, Sooners Discuss Upcoming Season

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