Michigan State was fortunate to pull off a win against Colorado State on Friday evening. Their next opponent, the Oklahoma Sooners, had a much easier time getting past their 1st round opponent. In the last game on Friday night, the Sooners – playing in their home arena – completely victimized the Idaho Vandals, 89-59. The route included a third quarter defensive clinic where they only surrendered 3 points.
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A quick look at the box score of that game will show what
should come as no surprise to anyone with an eye on women’s hoops. Oklahoma’s senior leader, the 6’4” Raegan Beers, led the team with 18 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 blocks. Her scoring came on 6-9 on FGs and 6-10 of FTs. If Beers gets the ball inside, it is highly likely she is getting points, either with a basket or a trip to the line.
All five of Oklahoma’s starters averaged double-digit scoring coming into this game; against Idaho, four of them reached that mark, while the 5th scored 8. Sahara Williams, a forward, had 17 points, while guards Aaliyah Chavez, Payton Verhulst, and Zya Vann added 15, 14, and 8, respectively. They had five players came off the bench, and four of them got in the scoring column for a combined 17 points.
Oklahoma finished fifth in a stacked SEC with an 11-5 conference record, 24-7 overall. They won one game in the SEC Tournament before falling in the quarterfinal round. All of their losses during the season came against a team that finished ranked in the top 20 – UCLA, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Texas, Vanderbilt, and LSU (2X).
Even going against the SEC schedule that featured four teams who finished ranked in the top 6 in the nation, the Sooners still ended up with the conference’s 2nd highest, and nation’s 3rd highest, scoring average at 86.8. Defensively, Oklahoma is not as stout, finishing 13th of 16 in the SEC, allowing 67.8. MSU’s 65.8 allowed was good for 9th in the Big 18 10.
If you are wondering why OU was able to shut down Idaho so much while not having a statistically great defense, the answer is that their starting lineup is not blessed with a ton of size, especially compared to many of their conference rivals. While Beers can eclipse opponents – she is bigger than anyone on MSU’s roster – her teammates don’t have that same ability. Three other starters are under 6’, while the fourth, Payton Verhulst, is a slender 6’1” who plays on the perimeter.
This needs to be the focus of MSU’s attack on Sunday night. They need to take advantage of their height advantage and attack the interior. Grace VanSlooten and Ines Sotelo are both 6’3” and Jalyn Brown is 6’1”. And even our PG, 5’9” Kennedy Blair, has shown she isn’t afraid to take the ball to the hole.
This part of MSU’s game will be even more important if they insist on having a putrid three-point shooting night similar to the 4-21 display they gave us against CSU. Hopefully that was mostly rust. But we will be playing our next game against the Oklahoma home crowd, so if we are struggling early, you can bet that the Sooner faithful will become a factor. Maybe one game at the Lloyd Noble Center was enough for us to get used to shooting on those baskets. Otherwise, we will be a very one-dimensional team. But Oklahoma has the best weapon in Raegan Beers to neutralize that one dimension.
The Round of 32 game is scheduled for 8 PM ET and is airing on ESPN. We’ll see you in the game thread.
