After topping Kansas on Friday, 80-68, and then falling to Baylor on Saturday, 91-76, the Oklahoma women’s basketball team was waiting to find out its NCAA Tournament fate following the Phillips 66 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship.
What the Sooners found out was fantastic news. Oklahoma (24-8, 12-6 Big 12) is the No. 4 seed in the Bridgeport region of the women’s NCAA Tournament and will meet 13th-seeded IUPUI on Saturday. That means the Sooners open in Norman versus IUPUI and potentially against the winner of the matchup between No. 5 seed Notre Dame and No. 12 seed Massachusetts.
🏀 Welcome to the Madness 🏀#Sooners x @MarchMadnessWBB pic.twitter.com/lsACBkd7Iw
— Oklahoma Basketball (@OU_WBBall) March 14, 2022
The top seed in the Bridgeport region is North Carolina State. Oklahoma and N.C. State are joined by No. 2 seed Connecticut and No. 3 seed Indiana. Fellow Big 12 foe Kansas State is also the No. 9 seed in the Sooners’ region. The Wildcats open against eighth-seeded Washington State.
“The feeling you get when your name comes up on that screen. Other than when Ayoka Lee’s name came up against us, other than that, it felt really good to be able to just see our name and to be able to get a bracket and, you know, everyone taking pictures of the brackets and all that kind of stuff. It just never gets old and it gets better every time,” Oklahoma head women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk said.
The Bridgeport region! #SelectionSunday #MarchMadness pic.twitter.com/VQ2nkD00tC
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessWBB) March 14, 2022
Other Big 12 teams that made the field include No. 2 seed Baylor in the Wichita region, No. 2 seed Texas and No. 8 seed Kansas in the Spokane region and No. 3 seed Iowa State in the Greensboro region. In addition to N.C. State, the other No. 1 seeds in the field are South Carolina in the Greensboro region, Stanford in the Spokane region and Louisville in the Wichita region.
It is Oklahoma’s first appearance back in the NCAA Tournament since 2018. OU is seeking its first NCAA Tournament win since 2017 when the sixth-seeded Sooners beat 11th-seeded Gonzaga in Oklahoma City, 75-62.
OU’s leading scorers entering the NCAA Tournament include Madi Williams at 18.2 points per game, Taylor Robertson at 17.0 points per game and Skylar Vann at 11.8 points per game.
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