Mussatto: How OU women's basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk has reinvigorated Sooners

NORMAN — Jennie Baranczyk has made a habit of overachieving in her two-plus seasons at the helm of OU women’s hoops, and this season might be her best coaching job yet.

Wednesday, when OU hosts No. 2 Kansas State at 6 p.m., could bring her best win yet. It would be the program’s first victory over a top-two team in nearly 20 years.

After stumbling to a 6-5 record in their non-conference slate, including a startling loss to Southern University, the Sooners are 7-1 in Big 12 play — second in the conference behind Kansas State (20-1, 9-0 Big 12), where Baranczyk started her career in 2004 as an assistant.

The Sooners, picked by coaches to finish fifth in the Big 12, would vault atop the conference standings with a win.

“If we go into this game tomorrow and we’re motivated just to play against Kansas State, well, we have the wrong motivation,” Baranczyk said Tuesday. “We’ve gotta be able to go in and be better than we were the day before, and you happen to play Kansas State.”

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The Wildcats are looking to improve to 10-0 in the conference for the first time in program history, dating back to the Big Eight.

Regardless of the result, Baranczyk has reinvigorated the program after Sherri Coale’s 25 seasons in charge. Coale led the Sooners to 19 consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances from 2000 to 2018, but the Sooners went 18-36 in the Big 12 in Coale’s final three seasons.

Enter Baranczyk, who is on her way to leading the Sooners to a third NCAA Tournament appearance in her third season.

Baranczyk, who spent nine seasons at Drake before Joe Castiglione tabbed her as Coale’s replacement, is 33-11 in Big 12 games.

In 2021-22, Baranczyk’s first season, the Sooners were picked to finish fifth in the Big 12. OU finished fourth. Last season, the Sooners were picked third in the preseason. They finished first, tying Texas with a 14-4 conference record.

OU’s only Big 12 loss this season came at Kansas State. The Wildcats beat the Sooners by 17 points. Ayoka Lee, who once dropped 61 on the Sooners, had 19 points, six rebounds and five blocks for the Wildcats. The 6-foot-6 All-American center won’t play Wednesday, however, after recently undergoing ankle surgery.

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The Wildcats, even with a cornerstone player like Lee, were picked by coaches to finish fourth in the preseason poll behind Texas, Baylor and Kansas, and one spot ahead of OU.

“I think it’s interesting that we were picked fifth,” Baranczyk said Tuesday. “That was with Liz Scott.”

Scott, a forward who started all 33 games last season, was ruled out for the season in November with a shoulder injury. The Sooners also graduated a trio of super-seniors in Taylor Robertson, Madi Williams and Ana Llanusa.

“It doesn’t matter,” Baranczyk said of the preseason prognostications. “Everybody’s first right now and everybody’s last. It’s still so early in the season. I’m not worried about any of that, especially this time of year.”

It’s not that early. February is almost here and we’ve reached the halfway point of the Big 12 schedule.

It is, however, early in Baranczyk’s tenure at OU.

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But having exceeded expectations in each of her first two years and change in Norman, the early returns are encouraging.

“The whole purpose of what we’re doing is to serve our players, our university, our state and not anything else,” Baranczyk said when asked about settling into her role. “And when you keep it literally that simple, then you have fun with what you’re doing.

“And if I don’t have fun, and I don’t have resiliency and I don’t have grit and all that, how can I expect (my players) to?”

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Oklahoma vs. Kansas State

TIPOFF: 6 p.m. Wednesday at Lloyd Noble Center in Norman (ESPN+)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU women's basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk has reinvigorated Sooners