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Monday, August 20
 Travel Journal: Joanna McFarland
Saturday, August 18
Travel Journal: Aaryn Ellenberg
Friday, August 17
Travel Journal: Nicole Griffin
 Sydney Photo Gallery
 Exploring Sydney
Sooners 70, Sydney Uni 59
Recap | Box Score (PDF)
Game Highlights | Postgame
Thursday, August 16
Travel Journal: S. Campbell
Photo Gallery
Wednesday, August 15
Travel Journal: Morgan Hook
Sooners 100, Maitland 74
Recap | Box Score (PDF)
Game Highlights | Postgame
Tuesday, August 14
Travel Journal: Nicole Kornet
Coale: Journey Part 4
Yo Time: Melbourne Edition
Photo Gallery
Sooners 89, Dandenong 60
Recap | Box Score (PDF)
Game Highlights | Postgame
Monday, August 13
Coale: A World Away
Travel Journal: Maddie Manning
Monday in Melbourne
Sunday, August 12
Travel Journal: Portia Durrett
Saturday, August 11
Travel Journal: Whitney Hand
Great Barrier Reef
Photo Gallery
Friday, August 10
Travel Journal: Lyndsey Cloman
Coale: Adventure in Cairns
Aaryn Ellenberg Photo Album
Cairns Tropical Zoo
Sooners 84, Townsville 70
Recap | Box Score (PDF)
Game Highlights | Postgame
Thursday, August 9
Travel Journal: Kaylon Williams
Oz By Land, Air and Water
Barron River Rafting
Wednesday, August 8
Coale From Aboard Flight 8
Travel Journal: Jas Hartman
Monday, August 6
Coale, Hand on Workouts
Sooners Prepare for Australia
| Australia Tour |
| 08/07 |
Depart Norman |
| 08/08 |
Cross Int'l Date Line |
| 08/09 |
Arrive in Cairns |
| 08/10 |
Game vs. Townsville |
| 08/11 |
Great Barrier Reef |
| 08/12 |
Depart for Melbourne |
| 08/13 |
Old Melbourne Gaol |
| 08/14 |
Game vs. Dandenong |
| 08/15 |
Game vs. Maitland |
| 08/16 |
Sydney Opera House |
| 08/17 |
Game vs. Sydney |
| 08/18 |
Return to United States |
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Saturday, August 18 |
Joanna McFarland: Travel Journal - Epilogue
Awesome, amazing, astounding -- there are so many adjectives to describe this trip and I'm only through the A's. There's no way I can pick just one. As my teammates have updated, we have the opportunity to participate in once-in-a-lifetime experiences basically every day of the trip.
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Saturday, August 18 |
The Sooners departed for the United States Saturday afternoon and arrived on the ground at Dallas-Fort Worth at roughly the same time. The team will get two weeks off before getting back to the full grind of preparations for the season.
Aaryn Ellenberg: Travel Journal - Day 11
It was a pleasure to end our trip in Sydney, a beautiful city that defines Australian culture. Not only is it one of the most magnificent locations I've ever had the opportunity to visit, it is also home to two of the world's most famous sites.
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Friday, August 17 |
Oklahoma had an a la carte menu for its final taste of Sydney. With their last game Friday evening and departure set for Saturday morning, the Sooners were free to explore the largest city in Australia on their own. For a part of the group, that meant a 4 a.m. wake-up call and city bus ride to Bondi Beach where a magnificent sunrise started the day.
Oklahoma Sooners 70, Sydney Uni Flames 59
Recap | Highlights | Sydney Photo Gallery
Nicole Griffin: Travel Journal - Day 10
Thursday was one of the days that everyone looked forward to from the start of the trip. It was the day we visited the two most famous landmarks in Sydney, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge. And, to top it all off, it was Whitney's birthday. She now has a great birthday story to tell for the rest of her life.
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Thursday, August 16 |
The Sooners celebrated Whitney Hand's brithday 15 hours earlier this year thanks to being in Sydney, Australia, Thursday morning. OU's adventure today was a tour of the world famous Sydney Opera House and climbing to the top of the 440-foot Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Photo Gallery
Sharane Campbell: Travel Journal - Day 9
We have arrived in Sydney. The first impression the city gives you is from its scenery. You enter downtown over the massive Harbour Bridge and are greeted by the most famous landmark in Australia, the Sydney Opera House, before diving into a sea of colorful skyscrapers. They all demand your attention.
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Wednesday, August 15 |
The Sooners have arrived at their final destination of their Australian tour, Sydney. In the evening, OU played the Maitland All-Stars, winning 100-74, behind 30 points from Aaryn Ellenberg and 21 from Whitney Hand.
Recap | Box Score | Game Highlights
Morgan Hook: Travel Journal - Day 8
Have you ever wanted to sing karaoke so badly that you walked three miles uphill in the rain in shoes two sizes too small just hoping that you might stumble upon Chinatown? Never had that urge, huh? Well that is exactly how some of us spent our Monday night in Melbourne.
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Tuesday, August 14 |
Tuesday, the OU women's basketball team visited Melbourne's oldest market, the Queen Victoria Market, and walked through the largest open-air market in the southern hemisphere. In the evening, the Sooners played their second of four games while in Australia against the 2012 WNBL Champion Dandenong Rangers, winning 89-60.
Queen Victoria Market Photo Gallery | Game Highlights
Nicole Kornet: Travel Journal - Day 7
You know that little check-up room at the doctor's office where the nurse locks you in just to keep you waiting anxiously for the doctor to show up? That's the mental image that popped into my head when I first laid eyes on a Melbourne jail cell. Except it's not just you, your mom, and the doctor in that tiny little room. It's you and seven other prisoners in a dingy, disease-ridden cell with nothing but a bucket of waste, eight straw beds, and two tiny windows to keep you company.
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Sherri Coale Journey Down Under - Part 4
I watched the city of Melbourne wake up this morning. Huge, heavy fog hugged all the skyscrapers, but lifted its skirt just enough to give us early morning explorers a peak at this unassuming city on the water.
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Yo Time: Melbourne Edition
OU strength and conditioning coach Joszef Szendrei teaches how to properly throw a boomerang.
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Monday, August 13 |
The Sooners woke up to their first day in Melbourne with a nice suprise at breakfast -- pancakes and American-style bacon -- to hit the spot before touring the Old Melbourne Jail in the morning. The Sooners have their second game of the tour Tuesday night, but not before Coach Coale catches us up on the first contest.
Exploring Downtown and Old Melbourne Jail
Sherri Coale Travel Journal - Part 3
Think San Diego without bumper to bumper traffic, blaring emergency sirens, or throngs of people. Then add heavily treed mountains, lots of enormous rocks, air void of pollutants and haze, and you've got Cairns.
In other words, it is 75 degrees with a light ocean breeze all day long. And I have never seen a bluer sky.
For us Cairns has been a race to DO! We've crammed as much activity into three days as any humans possibly could. We rafted down the rapids of the Barron River, we snorkeled around the Great Barrier Reef, we fed the crocodiles and held koalas and somewhere in the middle of all that we found time to play a little ball.
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Maddie Manning: Travel Journal - Day 6
I have been sitting here staring at a blank piece of paper for the past 30 minutes just trying to think of the words that could even begin to do this trip justice. It has been such an unbelievable experience. Every day has been filled with breathtaking adventures. How many people can honestly say they have snorkeled at the Great Barrier Reef or went floating down the rapids through the rainforest of Australia? Not many. Not only can we say that we have done so, but we have done so with such special people...with our second family.
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Sunday, August 12 |
The OU women's basketball team waved goodbye to tropical Cairns Sunday and headed south for the cooler temperatures of Melbourne. With no activities other than travel planned, Portia Durrett, who totaled 12 points and nine rebounds in OU's first of four games it will play on the trip, wrote about her experience with the team so far and explained how she got into a groove so quickly.
Game Highlights vs. Townsville Flames
Portia Durrett: Travel Journal - Day 5
I had an awkward picture of Australia in my mind. Taking my first steps off the plane and walking on the stomping grounds around thousands of Australians, I didn't know what to expect. I imagined we might be dropped into the Outback -- no water in sight -- with kangaroos chasing after me. I guess I was wrong. This has been the most beautiful place I've ever visited.
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Saturday, August 11 |
The Sooners' final day in Cairns feature a trip to the area for which the region is known -- the Great Barrier Reef. OU's day-long journey began with a bus ride to Port Douglas from where they boarded a ship for the Agnicourt Reef.
Photo Gallery | Reef Highlights
Whitney Hand: Travel Journal - Day 4
Our third day in Australia consisted of the most anticipated activity of the trip for me -- snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. I don't think I could have been more excited going into today! I have a bucket list at home, and I got to cross it off today, August 11th, 2012. Our day began earlier than usual because snorkeling in the reef is an all day event here in Cairns. We ate breakfast at the hotel, which if you haven't heard has the most breathtaking sunrises over the ocean than anything I could imagine. We took a large ship -- one that could hold up to 350 passengers, although there weren't that many -- out of the Port Douglas Marina. The marina was about an hour and a half bus ride from our hotel. The trip there was full of energy, excitement and anxiety about the day that was to come.
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Friday, August 10 |
OU's first game day was preluded by an up-close-and-personal meet and greet with the Australian wildlife, featuring opportunities to feed kangaroos and hold koalas. In the evening, the Sooners defeated the Townsville Flames 84-70.
Game Highlights | Postgame Interview
Lyndsey Cloman: Travel Journal - Day 3
Crocodiles, kangaroos and koala bears...oh my! Today we got the once in a lifetime chance to visit the Cairns Tropical Zoo. Being an animal lover, I couldn't wait to see all the exotic creatures Australia had to offer. Anxious and ready to interact with the animals, we started our tour face to beak with all the different types of breathtaking birds of prey. Red, blue, white and multi-colored birds filled the air as they flew around the walk-through habitat. I was lost, mesmerized while looking at all their different shapes and sizes when, suddenly, a bird flying full speed smacked right into my chest.
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Thursday, August 9 |
After traveling across the globe for more than 24 hours by land and air, the Sooners immediately took to water. The OU women's basketball team's first Australian adventure was a whitewater rafting excursion on the Barron River near Cairns in tropical North Queensland. In the evening, the team sat down to dinner that included crocodile satay and kangaroo kabobs on its menu.
Kaylon Williams: Travel Journal - Day 2
Wow! Our first day -- or maybe I should say our first two days -- ended with some adventure. After our journey from Oklahoma to Australia, we didn't slow down for a minute. Today we went whitewater rafting. For those of you that don't know what that is, apparently it is where you go into the mountains deep in the rainforest to a river and sign your life away so that you can let the current float you and your friends on a rubber raft back down while bumping and splashing against giant rocks and all that great stuff!
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Wednesday, August 8 |
The Sooners departed Norman at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon for a flight to Dallas to meet their connection to Australia. After a 15 1/2 hour flight, the OU women's basketball team touched down in Brisbane, in time for a Thursday morning Australian sunrise.
Jasmine Hartman: Travel Journal - Day 1
After a four-hour layover in Dallas -- eating Popeyes chicken, making silly videos and talking on cell phones to family -- finally we boarded the amazing double-decker Qantas 747 bound for Australia. I've never been on a plane like this one. It was filled with 73 rows seating over 700 passengers. We were all excited and didn't dread the 15-hour flight due to the individual access of complimentary entertainment (movies, tv, radio, games, and books). However, we were already prepared to have an open mind and sense of humor.
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Sherri Coale: Journey Down Under - Part 1
They say Australia is so great that you forget it took you 17 hours to get there. Kind of like childbirth I suppose. If I so chose to extrapolate the metaphor at this point, I would say that our water had broken and we were in the throes of contractions. But I'd quite prefer to move beyond it, I've decided. Suffice to say, we've been packaged and sent off and we are enamored, every last one of us, at the prospect of it all.
We had seven days together before we boarded this plane--one meeting, eight workouts, quite a bit of team eating, and a whole lot of scrambling and packing.
As I write, I'm sandwiched in the very center of the very center aisle of this enormous aircraft. I am typing with my elbows pinned down to my sides, while I watch my computer's battery life slip adamantly away. In vain I am searching for an accurate foundational sentence. Something that will convey where we are as a group. Something that will adequately reflect the potential of the journey ahead.
And all I can think about is Vegas' tweet late the night before we left: "All I have in my bag so far is my sense of humor and my open mind."
Way funnier if you had been in our midst the past week, but still a fitting capsule. And classic Aaryn Ellenberg.
This group is so fun. And they get it. The former without the latter makes for grade school recess. The latter without the former, makes for a military march. And though it really honestly only happens on rare occasions, no profession is better than coaching when the former and the latter meet in the middle and get married. These twelve guys we have the privilege to coach like one another. They like ball. And they like learning. We got a lot done in eight sessions. And I think all involved had a darn good time doing it.
We can't wait to play. But this crew won't let any moment on the journey to the court escape unscathed. They have a heartbeat that just might reverberate across the water.
We've crossed the equator and we're headed toward the time line where we'll lose Wednesday and magically pick it back up on our way back through next weekend. More from the land down under...if we ever get there.
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Monday, Aug. 6 |
The OU women's basketball team wrapped a week of practices in advance of its 10-day, four-game tour of Australia.
Sooners Prepare for Land Down Under
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