By Clay Horning
Perhaps No. 18 Arizona State will make a slew of good teams appear worse this season or maybe No. 2 Oklahoma proved, even on a basketball court, you can’t hit a home run every night.
On the other hand, OU was still better than ASU, and with a 70-57 Preseason WNIT semifinal victory Friday night at Lloyd Noble Center, the Sooners earned a Sunday afternoon home court date with No. 4 North Carolina in the tourney final.
“It wasn’t the prettiest basketball game I’ve ever been a part of,” OU coach Sherri Coale said. “But it was a win over a very challenging team.”
The game was marred by long periods of inefficiency. The Sun Devils (2-1) needed seven attempts to hit their first basket and six to finally get on the board after the half. During one second-half stretch, OU converted on just 2 of 11 trips down the court.
But it was something Coale said following OU’s Wednesday night victory over Middle Tennessee State, that her team’s depth of weaponry might “be our ace down the stretch,” that came to bear upon the Sun Devils. At different times, different players stepped forward to help OU (3-0) maintain its perfect start to the season.
“I think that’s the difference in our team from any other year,” Sooner center Courtney Paris said. “We have a lot of depth and if somebody is struggling, we can have someone (else) step up.”
By the end, that person was Paris herself. She didn’t attempt a shot the first 16 minutes but finished with 19 points and 20 rebounds on 8 of 11 shooting, along the way becoming the all-time scorer in program history.
In the first half, it was Carlee Roethlisberger who scored all 12 of her points in an 8-minute span, including a personal 10-point run that turned a 9-9 tie into a 19-12 lead OU never gave away.
“I just like to come in and help when they come (with) a double down on Courtney,” said Roethlisberger, who hit a 3-pointer, converted a 3-point play, hit two free throws, then stole the ball and converted a circus layup to complete her run.
Near the end, Ashley Paris scored eight points of a 12-5 Sooner run that pushed the edge to 64-47, OU’s biggest lead.
“I think they can score at every position,” ASU coach Charli Turner Thorne said. “We played them last year and they have really improved.”
The Sun Devils got 14 points from Dymond Simon and 12 each from Briann January and Lauren Lacey.
If it was defense causing all the choppiness, the Sooners got the better of it, holding ASU to 33.8 percent shooting (22 of 65), while converting 42.2 percent (27 of 64) themselves.
But after committing a season-high 21 turnovers, “It definitely wasn’t the game we wanted to play,” Courtney Paris said.
Nonetheless, it has them playing the fourth-ranked Tar Heels Sunday.
Clay Horning
366-3526
cfhorning@normantranscript.com
