Blogging wimmens basketball

Don't forget Erin Higgins!

 

FWIW, Britney Griner is a true Baritone.

 

The final installment:

This has been a fun season blogging with you all and I am proud of our team, even if we couldn't kill the tree with a basketball tonight. I will be back one last time for final season grades later this week.

Boomer Sooner anyway

 

IDID NOT KNOW that you were a cartoonist, Badger. How long have you been doing that?

 

Only on special occasions. They are extremely shoddy, so I don't ever have to worry about anyone ever wanting to steal my work

 

Your cartoons are incredible, Badg. I love them and I think they deserve a wider audience.

 

BOOMER............

proud of our team and our coach!!

 

Good job on the cartoons badg. I knew there was a reason to like forest fires.

 

SS.com doesn't have the cumulative stats up yet including last night's game, so I'll wait on the final season grades for the shock of not pulling it off to settle. I'm totally Oscar the Grouch this morning

I went back and tallied up the "player of the game" awards, which used to just be "player of the week" awards, which sometimes I was so WTF at the time that I awarded them to random players. Anyways...

1- I didn't honor Abi enough. I'm sorry, Abi. You're really awesome and I should have let everyone know more.
2- I honored Carlee more than Danielle Robinson. Granted, that was usually as an "honorable mention" for either actually shooting and making shots more or for defensive efforts, but still, weird.
3- The other two seniors had the same number of PoW/PoG honorees at the end of the regular season. And then, I didn't choose PoG's for the Big 12 tourney games, but did for the NCAA tourney games, even if a few of the games I gave "team" honors and Kodi Morrison honors, haha. And THAT, people, is what gave one senior an unfair advantage in the final tally, because I think we all know that between Amanda and Ny, one had a good Big 12 tourney, one had a good NCAA tourney.

... so anyway, I'll include that in the season-end grades, acknowledging that I really wasn't consistent to begin with. I get an F.

 

Third best team in the nation, IMO. That's an amazing accomplishment, and all the girls should be extremely happy with their performances this year!

No rest for the wicked, though. We've seen the top and it's within reach. We've just got to work a little harder to make it there!

 

Till the final stats are in, here's an interestin article on OU womens basketball recruiting.

Link!

Also, when you're through playing with matches around trees and throwing pebbles at Cardinals (scuze me - CARDINAL, singular, gaaahhhh), here are some articles on the game yesterday - follow the links to see pics as well.

At newsok.com, a general article about the game here,, a column on how Hand could have helped here, a column on how close-knit the group is here, and a note on Hakeem finally watching is daughter play here.

I take back anything I previously said questioning why Hakeem never showed up to games. It seems he and Abi have a good relationship. However, for future celebs in the crowd, the autograph seekers will leave you alone for the most part if you're a regular like them. You'll get hounded if they think you'll never show up to a game again.

At tulsaworld.com, a recap of the game here, a column on how Stanford out-sized us here, an in-depth look at stats (like rebounding and shooting woes, argh) here.

If you're time crunched, I recommend the DOK's Hakeem thing and the TW's stat glance.

 

A great season. Thank you SC and team!

 

And now, the final curtain:

#1: Nyeshia Stevenson
Role: Big-shot taker and maker
Grade: A+ (Last year: C)
Summary: Started all 38 games, leading the team average of minutes per game. Led the team in three-point percentage (although Whitney Hand technically had a higher percentage in her games) and definitely hit the shots that mattered.

#10 Carlee Roethlisberger
Role: Defensive guru and long distance shooter
Grade: C+ (Last year: C)
Summary: Carlee started off as a shooter, but found herself getting nearly to players on defense and nearer to the backboard for rebounds as her shots started to stop falling. Gained a starting spot after Whitney went down, lost it to a younger player when her shot stopped going down, Carlee still had the fourth-highest minutes per game average on the team (not including Whitney of course). She has much to work on in her offseason defining her role again, whether it is to be a shooter, or to be the best d@mn defender on the court.

#13 Danielle Robinson
Role: Speedy ball thief, passer and dribble driver
Grade: A (Last year: B+)
Summary: One reason Sooner fans have hope that our Final Four streak may continue is good ol' D-Rob, the junior guard who led our offense. She will get a "plus" behind her "A" when she stops turning over the ball so much, which she got better at by the end of the season. Despite leading the team in TOs, she also BY FAR led the team in assists, free throw percentage, and points per game while starting all 38 games. This offseason, my guess is she will try to become an even bigger scoring threat by upping her outside shots and passing accuracy.

#14: Lauren Willis
Role: Team motivator, feel-good story provider
Grade: C (Last year: inc)
Summary: You might have noticed it for a sec - when we were down by double digits and the game seemed outta hand against Satanford, Sherri put in Lauren and the game was suddenly getting closer. The feel-good story of her Christmas scholarship is now more than a year old, but she really seems to have the ability to get her teammates to play harder, either from the bench or from getting on the court. Hopefully, she will get more minutes and get into more games in the next season.

#21 Amanda Thompson
Role: Rebounding fanatic, midrange jump shooter, bully killer
Grade: A+ (Last year: B)
Summary: Does she really have to graduate? Was the only one to average more than 10 rebounds per game, was second in assists (and turnovers, argh) while starting all 38 games while hitting 30 percent of 3's and 80 percent of her free's. Seriously - can we Jason White her and get her a sixth year of eligibility (after her fifth, hehe)?

#25 Whitney Hand
Role: Sideline Sooner, laugher at Sherri Coale's jokes, coach-in-training
Grade: A+ (Last year: A+)
Summary: Get well. Any time Landry decides to slack off on his QB training, slap him and say "dammit, I haven't been able to walk or run for months and you don't wanna do either?!" Even in her five games, she led the team in 3's and logged fourth-most minutes. If the NCAA doesn't give you a medical redshirt, get David Boren involved.

#31: Kodi Morrison
Role: Walk-on who runs a lot in practice and games
Grade: inc.
Summary: So, she was only on the roster half the season. So, she played in as many games as Whitney Hand. Ummm... I can't think of a way to end that thought. Contribute more! J/k welcome to the team.

#34 Abi Olajuwon
Role: Post pro, whistle's friend, senior outta the shadow
Grade: A- (Last year: C+)
Summary: Abi didn't log as many minutes as the other regular starters, but still averaged 10 and 7 (pts/rbs) while having the second-most foul shots (and fouling out the most) and the highest field goal percentage. It was great to see her be able to take over for the missing Paris twins after years of seeing her on the bench waiting to come in the game.

#44: Lyndsey Cloman
Role: Head high-fiver and cheerer from bench, ???
Grade: C
Summary: She only played in 21 games, but it seemed like every time I saw her, it was her wildly cheering from the bench or congratulating teammates for something. Hopefully by next season I can give a better role title to her as she logs more minutes and her TV time is from the court.

#45: Jasmine Hartman
Role: Starting job earner, hesitant shooter
Grade: B- (Last year: C)
Summary: The most frustrating thing about watching her was not the shots that she missed (even though she air balled a few of those), but the shots that she was wide open for that she did not take. As I said earlier, didn't Ny teach you ANYthing? With Ny graduated, someone will need to step into that role to help D out with running the offense and moving (and SHOOTING) the ball. I hope it's Hart. If not, look for Sherri to possibly make another starting lineup change. You don't wanna see that, do you Hart? TAKE THE SHOT.

#53: Joanna McFarland
Role: Blog starter, center tradition continuer, four-fouler
Grade: B+
Summary: Joanna was how this blog started and now part of the blog's end for me this season. Who the hell is Joanna McFarland?! She was the biggest and happiest surprise of the season and another good reason to look forward to next year for. After starting off the year logging four fouls on practically every box score, she has developed other areas of her game, such as hitting post shots (second on the team in field goal percentage) and rebounding. While she started no games this year, she played in them all and I expect her to be starting by next fall.

Coach of the Year: Sherri Coale
Why: THERE! I said it! Why honor coaches that have had sucky teams in the past that have had ONE good season? In your FACE, Nebraska! Yeah, where were YOU during the Final Four? Oh, did you lose at almost-home to the team WE BEAT BY 20 POINTS ON THE SAME COURT?! Hahaha... seriously, you guys had a good season, but Sherri Coale deserved the coaching honors this year and you stole them from her. Look for us to pay you back next season. Enjoy your conference championship trophy while you can.

Player of the Year: Nyeshia Stevenson
Why: Because I counted all of the Player of the Week/Player of the Game honors and Ny had the most! Although...

Honorable mention: Amanda Thompson
Why: I kind of slacked off during Big 12 tourney week and didn't give Amanda her kudos for saving us in those two games versus OSU and Baylor, but did count the NCAA tourney games where Ny came alive. As such, Ny had an unfair advantage and really, I didn't consistently award these honors all year long, thus...

#0: badger
Role: Blogging wimmens basketball inaugural year
Grade: F
Summary: Badger will return next season with a more consistent player honoring (and if necessary, dishonoring) system after every game, including more photos, videos and quotes, and will hopefully have another Final Four opponent to torment with crappy cartoons. If not, there is always Baylor.

Boomer! See you next season.

EDIT: I added in last season's grades from this thread here to give you an idea of how consistent my grading is and to show how much some of these players have improved. I think my grading is consistent... although I am kind of surprised that I gave Whitney Hand an A+ last year too... then again, I think we can all agree that she was that d@mn good.

 

I really hope the girls read this. They need to know we love them and can't wait to see them play again!

 

So I just added the grades from last season as well as a link... the grades show it, but everyone on the team, from the starters to the bench-starters improved.

 

Email it to Sherri, or any of the team..Send it to the Daily newpaper, if they still do that.

 

Badger, how many words per minute do you type?

 

Many.

 

thanks to you badger for starting and keeping it going. sorry i missed last years thread.

BOOMER.....

 

Dittos, Dawrlin'!