Season Tips Wednesday with Houston

Wednesday, November 25

Norman

12 p.m.

University of Oklahoma

Houston

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Photo by: Ty Russell

November 24, 2020 | Women's Basketball

Tickets FSSW OU Radio Game Notes LNC Game Day Policies & Procedures Sherri Coale Season Preview

Oklahoma

Houston

Wednesday, Nov. 25 / 12 p.m. CT / Norman / Lloyd Noble Center

Fox Sports Southwest / Radio / Game Notes

NORMAN – The Oklahoma women's basketball team is set to open the 2020-21 season Wednesday when it hosts Houston at 12 p.m. inside Lloyd Noble Center. OU will look for its seventh consecutive win in a home opener and 12th in a season opener as the Sooners look to avenge last season's loss to the Cougars in Houston.

GAMEDAY BASICS

The University of Oklahoma Athletics Department has announced game day procedures as well as additional information related to the fan experience for all events at Lloyd Noble Center for the 2020-21 season. Many of the policies were formulated to increase the number of touchless services. A full lost of policies and procedures can be found here.

Additionally, the Sooners will be collecting canned goods for donation to the OU Food Pantry. Fans should place donations in the provided boxes at the upper east and north entrances to Lloyd Noble Center.

ON THE AIR

The matchup will air on the Sooner Radio Network (107.7 FM The Franchise in Oklahoma City; KTBZ 1430 AM in Tulsa; Tune In Radio App) with Brian Brinkley announcing.

The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports Southwest with Jessica Coody and Bryndon Manzer on the call.

FIVE THINGS TO KNOW

The Oklahoma women's basketball team opens the 2020-21 season at home on Nov. 25 with Houston. OU is 31-15 all-time in season openers and 36-10 in home openers.
OU returns six players from the 2019-20 season, including three of its top scorers in Taylor Robertson (19.1 PPG), Madi Williams (16.3 PPG) and Gabby Gregory (11.3 PPG).
Robertson was named to the Preseason All-Big 12 team while Williams and Ana Llanusa were selected as honorable mentions. As a team, OU was voted No. 7 in the Big 12 Preseason poll.
Robertson led the nation in made 3-pointers (131) and 3s per game (4.37) last season and shattered the OU and Big 12 single-season records. With two seasons under her belt, she will look to move up the NCAA's active career leaders lists for those categories. Robertson is a Preseason All-Big 12 honoree as well as a member of the 20-player watchlist for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award, given annually to the top shooting guard in Division I women's basketball.
Head Coach Sherri Coale enters her 25^th season at the helm for OU. The Hall of Fame coach has led OU to three Final Four appearances, 10 Big 12 titles and 19 NCAA tournament berths since 2000. She captured her 500^th career victory in 2019-20, bringing her overall record to 501-282.

GUESS WHO'S BACK, BACK AGAIN

OU returns six players from last year's squad in senior Mandy Simpson; juniors Taylor Robertson, Tatum Veitenheimer and Madi Williams; and sophomores Gabby Gregory and Liz Scott. Senior Ana Llanusa will miss the 2020-21 season due to injury.

Simpson, Robertson and Williams started almost every game while Gregory worked her way into the lineup, starting 22 games.

OU returns three of its four top scorers from 2019-20 in Robertson (19.1 PPG), Williams (16.3 PPG) and Gregory (11.3 PPG).

NEW SOONERS

The Sooners welcome freshmen Heavenly Greer (Phoenix, Ariz.), Nevaeh Tot (McKinney, Texas) and Skylar Vann (Edmond, Okla.).

A 6-3 forward out of Ganesha High School in Pomona, Calif., Greer was a McDonald's All-America Game nominee and is ranked No. 23 in her position by ESPN Hoopgurlz as well as No. 59 nationally by Prospects Nation. She scored 1,403 points and pulled down 820 boards during her prep career while also recording a monster 312 blocks.

Greer was named the 2020 John R. Wooden High School Player of the Year for the CIF Southern Section Division V, the award presented to the most valuable player in each California Interscholastic Federation Southern Section division and the Los Angeles City Section.

Tot was rated as a four-star recruit according to Prospects Nation. A product of McKinney, Texas, Tot was a first-team all-state selection as a junior in 2019, averaging 18.1 points and 4.8 assists per game as John Paul II High School reached the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools (TAPPS) 6A state quarterfinals. Tot finished her junior season with over 1,500 career points.

Vann scored 1,605 points in her prep career and pulled down 1,062 rebounds. As a senior in 2019-20, she averaged 18.9 points per game to lead the No. 4 team in the state in scoring, as well as 10.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 2.9 steals and 1.7 blocks.

CP3 IS BACK

Courtney Paris, the most decorated player in University of Oklahoma women's basketball history, was named assistant coach on May 13, 2020.

Paris starred for the Sooners from the 2005-06 through 2008-09 seasons and was the first-ever four-time Associated Press and USBWA All-American in women's college basketball history.

She graduated from Oklahoma as the owner of 20 NCAA Division I records, plus 57 Big 12 Conference and 69 school standards, many of which are unlikely to be broken. Paris remains OU's all-time leader in points (2,729) and rebounds (2,034) and became the first NCAA player – regardless of gender or division – to accumulate 2,500 career points and 2,000 career rebounds.

She finished her collegiate career with averages of 19.9 points, 14.8 rebounds and 3.3 blocks per game.

Paris joins the Sooners after a 10-year WNBA playing career with the Sacramento Monarchs, Atlanta Dream, Tulsa Shock, Dallas Wings and Seattle Storm.

The seventh overall pick in the 2009 WNBA Draft, Paris twice led the WNBA in rebounding (2014 and 2015) and won the 2018 WNBA title as a member of the Seattle Storm during her 10-year playing career. She also played professionally in Turkey, Israel and Spain for nine seasons.

TRIO EARNS PRESEASON ALL-BIG 12 HONORS

Taylor Robertson was named to the Preseason All-Big 12 team while Madi Williams and Ana Llanusa were named honorable mentions. The awards and team are chosen by head coaches, who are not allowed to vote for their own student-athletes.

Robertson averaged a team-high 19.1 points per game last season and shattered a host of OU and Big 12 records from the 3-point line. She drained 131 treys to break the league's single-season record, which had stood since 2002 and became the first Big 12 player to hit 100 or more 3-pointers in consecutive seasons. The McPherson, Kan., native led the nation in made 3s as well as 3s per game (4.37).

Williams averaged 16.1 points per game last season and was the team's leading rebounder with an average 7.3 per game. Williams scored in double figures in 27 of 30 games in 2019-20, including the last 18 straight. The Fort Worth native had seven performance with 20 or more points, including three contests with at least 10 made field goals. Williams registered a team-high six double-doubles in 2019-20.

Llanusa averaged 15.4 points per game and scored in double figures in 18 contests. She had seven outings with 20 points or more including three games with 25 or more. Llanusa led all Big 12 players in steals per game with an average 2.26 and tallied a single-game conference-high eight steals against UAB (Nov. 10, 2019). Llanusa will miss the 2020-21 season due to injury.

ROBERTSON ON ANN MEYERS DRYSDALE WATCH LIST

Taylor Robertson was one of 20 players named to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame's watch list for the Ann Meyers Drysdale Award.

Named after the first player, male or female, named to an All-America Team in four straight college seasons, the annual award in its fourth year recognizes the top shooting guard in women's NCAA Division I college basketball.

A national committee of top college basketball personnel determined the watch list of 20 candidates. In early February, the watch list will be narrowed to just 10 and in early March, five finalists will be presented to Ms. Meyers Drysdale and the Hall of Fame's selection committee.

The 2020-21 season marks the second consecutive season Robertson has been named to the award's watch list. She was a member of the top 10 list last season.
Robertson is one of two Big 12 players on the watchlist as she is joined by DiJonai Carrington of Baylor.

25 YEARS OF SC

Oklahoma head coach Sherri Coale enters her 25^th season at the helm for the Sooners.

Coale is 501-282 in her tenure at OU and has led the program to 19 NCAA tournament appearances; nine Sweet 16s; three Final Fours; and 10 Big 12 titles.

Coale has mentored 13 All-Americans; six Big 12 Players of the Year; seven Big 12 Freshmen of the Year; 68 All-Big 12 Team selections; and 16 WNBA draft selections, including 2018 WNBA champion Courtney Paris (Seattle Storm) and 2020 WNBA runner up Danielle Robinson (Las Vegas Aces).

Her players have excelled in the classroom, with 66 players to 131 Academic All-Big 12 honors; 16 CoSIDA Academic All-District Team members; and five CoSIDA Academic All-America Team Members.

Coale was inducted into the Women's College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016 and is a member of the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame's 2020 class.

UP NEXT

OU will be one of four programs to compete at the Women's Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic, a four-team, round-robin college basketball event held in Sioux Falls, S.D., Nov. 28-30.

The tournament field features No. 1 South Carolina, South Dakota and Gonzaga and will be held at Sanford Pentagon.

The field's four programs have a combined 41 Division I NCAA Tournament appearances along with 24 Sweet 16s, five Final Four banners and one national championship (South Carolina, 2017).

Flo Hoops will broadcast all six games.