MORGANTOWN — It’s not exactly frowned upon or even some type of new concept in college basketball to have an offensive-driven team, yet it’s a topic of conversation that is usually drowned out by a majority coaches who are passionate about defense.
Oklahoma women’s coach Jennie Baranczyk would beg to differ, at least for this season, as the Sooners showed Saturday what an efficient and high-powered offense can accomplish.
The best example is to point out West Virginia guard J.J. Quinerly scored a career-high 28 points and teammate Madisen Smith added 23 more and it really didn’t matter, as the 20th-ranked Sooners ran away with a 98-77 victory in front of 2,280 fans inside the Coliseum in the Big 12 opener for both schools.
“One of the things we’re learning is we don’t want to simply go out and outscore people, but offense is obviously very important,” is how Baranczyk describes an Oklahoma team that is averaging 88.4 points per game this season. “I think sometimes we do try to outscore teams, and when we don’t, things kind of go in the wrong direction.”
The Sooners (11-1, 1-0 Big 12) mostly moved forward against the Mountaineers, who survived an early onslaught of made shots to get back into the game in the second and third quarters.
After falling behind 30-19, WVU (9-3, 0-1) came back to take a 47-42 lead with 1:12 left in the second quarter and then held a slim 62-61 lead with 2:30 remaining in the third quarter.
That was on the backs of Quinerly and Smith going shot-for-shot with the Sooners, but Oklahoma simply proved to have more bullets in its gun.
Oklahoma’s shots came from sharp-shooting guard Taylor Robertson (six 3-pointers, 18 points), as well as the inside-outside game of forward Madi Williams (24 points), and when the Mountaineers had used everything in the book to try and slow down those two stars, the Sooners simply handed the ball to fifth-year guard Ana Llanusa, who scored a season-high 28 points on 11 of 13 shooting.
Mind you, this came against the Big 12’s top scoring defense, too, as WVU entered the game allowing just 50.3 points per game. Oklahoma eclipsed that mark with more than six minutes remaining in the third quarter.
“We’re all threats out there and you have to take advantage when you’re open,” said Llanusa, who hadn’t scored more than 14 points in a game this season before Saturday. “My teammates got me open today and we moved the ball really well to the point where I could get those set shots.”
Roberts and Williams are both all-conference players, with Roberts closing in on the all-time NCAA women’s mark for career 3-pointers. The six she hit against WVU — some of them from well beyond 21 feet — gave her 481 for her career, just 16 shy of the record.
“With them, you couldn’t just gamble and help a lot, or they would get wide open threes,” Quinerly said. “Then you have to guard inside, because their post players can handle the ball, they get downhill and they can shoot the three. It was challenging.”
Oklahoma shot 56.7% (38 of 67) from the field and connected on 14 3-pointers, many of them seemingly ending threats by the Mountaineers to get back into the game.
“They can string them together,” WVU head coach Dawn Plitzuweit said. “That’s probably the thing about them that is incredibly challenging. We tried to extend our defense in the fourth quarter, and that’s maybe not a good look against them. You’re fortunate when they miss, but their ability to then hit them back-to-back or back-to-back-to-back is really tough.”
Oklahoma’s 14 threes were the most against WVU since DePaul also made 14 in 2008.
Kylee Blacksten just missed out on a double-double for the Mountaineers with nine points and 10 rebounds. Oklahoma also got nine points and 10 rebounds from Skylar Vann, as the Sooners also finished with a 42-32 advantage on the boards and scored 36 points in the paint.
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