NORMAN — No time might seem like a good time to face Connecticut.
The Huskies are always terrific and this season will enter Lloyd Noble Center likely ranked No. 2 following Notre Dame’s Sunday loss to West Virginia.
All of that, and Oklahoma is struggling, too.
Unranked this season for the first time in several years, the Sooners fell 81-54 at No. 1 Baylor last Monday, only to follow it up with a narrow 64-60 victory over Missouri, the last winless team in the Big 12 Conference.
The Sooners’ history with the Huskies is not good either. OU has faced Connecticut nine times and never played it any closer than 12 points, as it did in its 82-70 national title game loss in 2002.
Still, OU (16-7, 8-4 Big 12) is “excited about the opportunity,” coach Sherri Coale said.
“Our RPI and strength of schedule is already floating to the very top of the bucket and it is not going to go anywhere but up (tonight),” she said. “Those are situations that you put yourself in to grow.”
But can OU do that against a team like the Huskies (23-2, 11-1 Big East), who are outscoring teams by an average 34.4 points per game this season?
After suffering a second lopsided loss to Baylor, OU struggled with Missouri. Might the Sooners be risking something going forward by meeting Connecticut tonight?
Coale believes it has nothing to do with the Huskies.
“(We) played the No. 1 team (Baylor) in the country twice and we could have played a lot better both times. Did they have something to do with that? Absolutely, but so did we,” she said. “That is the part we are concerned about. We want to take care of business … Connecticut will do what Connecticut does. They will be well prepared, they will fight, they will play hard and execute … We want to figure out who we are. What do we do? (Tonight) is all about us.”
OU would appear to need an identity quickly.
The Sooners are 23 games into their season and 12 games into an 18-game conference grind. The rest of the league schedule is favorable, but OU will struggle against about anybody if it plays as it played against Missouri.
OU has shot not better than 38.2 percent from the field in six of its last 10 games and has scored more than 70 points in regulation time only once in its last six games. Since conference play began, Oklahoma’s top two scorers, Whitney Hand and Aaryn Ellenberg, are combining for less than 27 points per game and neither is hitting even 40 percent of their shots.
Against Missouri, Coale believes the inaccuracy depleted OU’s energy well.
“When you don’t make shots,” she said, “it sucks the life out of you.”
Hand wants to see a new level of playing hard.
“I just want us to lose ourselves in the game. I want it to be a story of us fighting really hard together and having fun and not playing scared,” she said. “I really want it to be a dog fight. I want our team to be tough enough to take it and give it back.”
Clay Horning 366-3526 cfhorning@normantranscript.com
