Oklahoma women’s basketball coach Sherri Coale has always said some version of the same thing when it comes to NCAA Tournament bids, sites and regionals. She’ll take the highest seed and nearest venue every time, but claims not to dwell on such things.

Monday night, she was put to the test.

She passed.

With her team on hand in her Norman home, as well what appeared to be the entire Sooner women’s basketball support staff, Coale and everybody else were forced to wait until ESPN’s selection show finally came to the Dayton Regional.

At that point in the show, there appeared to be too many great teams for too few spots in the draw. So, with that the case, the Sooners found themselves the No. 3 seed at the Dayton Regional behind top seed Tennessee, No. 2 seed Maryland and No. 4 seed Ohio State.

That is, in one regional, the Nos. 2 (Tennessee), 6 (Maryland), 8 (Ohio State) and 9 (Oklahoma) teams in the nation may all be found.

By a clear consensus none of the other three regional draws are near as loaded as Dayton’s.

Coale, who thought her team was worthy of a No. 2 seed, still appeared to have no qualms.

“You’ve got to beat all the good teams anyway to win a national championship,” she said.

And her players seemed to agree.

“If we’re going to do what we want to do,” senior guard Erin Higgins said, “we’re going to have to face them all eventually anyway.”

It shouldn’t necessarily begin too difficult.

As the third seed, OU (26-4) will play the No. 14 seed Southeast Missouri State (24-7) at 11 a.m. Saturday at Frank Erwin Center in Austin, Texas. Should the Sooners prevail, they would face the winner of the Marquette-Louisiana-Lafayette contest Monday at the Erwin Center at a time yet to be determined.

Monday’s winner will move on to Dayton the following weekend.

The difficult lay of the land isn’t bothering Courtney Paris nearly as much as it has piqued her interest.

“Everything in our region is so top heavy,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

However, before the Sooners advance to eventually meet the Vols, Terrapins or Buckeyes, they must first take care of the Redhawks, who do claim one player Paris might take a real interest in.

Redhawk center Lachelle Lyles, at 17.2 per game, is the only player in the nation averaging more rebounds than Paris’ 16.2.

Coale believes the Sooners’ recent success will play right into their hands as every game becomes an elimination game.

“You say, hey, you’ve got a two-game tournament,” she said. “Certainly, after what we’ve been through, we can go win two games.”

The Sooners are the only Big 12 Conference team in the Dayton Regional, but just one of six in the women’s draw.

Texas A&M; received the fourth seed in the Dallas Regional, Iowa State received the sixth seed in the Dallas Regional, Baylor received the fifth seed in the Fresno Regional, Oklahoma State received the 10th seed at the Greensboro Regional and Nebraska received the ninth seed at the Greensboro regional.

Clay Horning

366-3526

cfhorning@normantranscript.com