By Clay Horning
Transcript Sports Editor
Two unusual things may have occurred Wednesday night at Lloyd Noble Center.
The first was clear as day, but the second may have required being inside the interview room off the arena's tunnel.
The event witnessed by 7,151 live and many more on local television was the 13th-ranked Oklahoma women's 75-57 loss to 17th-ranked Texas.
The last time the Sooners lost by so lopsided a score on their home court they fell 74-45 to No. 3 Kansas State Feb. 1, 2003.
The event witnessed by maybe 15 media members took place about 45 minutes later when Sooner coach Sherri Coale, point guard Danielle Robinson and team captain and starting forward Amanda Thompson finally emerged to take questions.
Most were about the game and even those were answered more starkly than usual, even after a difficult performance.
Coale didn't question her team's effort and intensity so much as condemn it. Robinson said the team "splintered." Thompson said it felt like the players "backed away" when Texas put together a run around the halfway point of the second half.
The tone, however, became far more pronounced when a television reporter asked Coale if having to play 10th-ranked Oklahoma State Saturday at Gallagher-Iba Arena was a "blessing in disguise," his point being she might not have to worry about her team's intensity and focus against the Sooners' Bedlam rival.
This is Coale's complete answer.
"Well, there should be no problem motivating a team to play Texas. I'm not making light of it. I'm saying it doesn't matter who we play, there should be no problem motivating college athletes to come to practice every day," she said. "I mean, come on. You're getting your education paid for and you're getting to do the thing you love, supposedly.
"Come on. No excuses. You've got to be ready to play."
If Coale was talking about more than one forgettable night, the very next question, answered by Robinson, brought to light one reason she might have been.
Robinson was asked how practice had been "leading up to tonight" by a radio reporter.
"Not that great. It's a reflection of how we've been practicing. We talked about that, too (in the locker room)," she said. "It just can't be three or four people. We have 10 people that all need to produce, whether in practice, in a game or whatever and we're not having that. It needs to change if we want to get the results."
The results the Sooners really want and need are greater than a simple reversal of what happened against Texas.
Though 15-6 on the season, OU has trailed at the half 12 different times. And many of the Sooners' victories have been less than stellar -- by four points at Texas Tech, by one point at Missouri, by nine points (but in double overtime) at Marist.
Even at home it's been a struggle, where OU beat Arkansas by one point in overtime and trailed by 16 in the second half.
OU's 81-69 victory over Kansas, one of the Sooners' best home court performances, was still marked by their coasting home after taking a 21-point lead with 16:48 remaining.
After the Cowgirls, it's No. 15 Baylor, which limited the Sooners to 47 points Jan. 13 in Waco, visiting Norman next. Colorado visits a week from Saturday. Then it's top-ranked Connecticut, which has beaten everybody but No. 2 Stanford by at least 21 points, visiting Feb. 15.
"This is our home," Thompson said after the Texas loss. "We can't have that."
With the schedule facing OU, it can't have it at home or away.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
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