Oklahoma's Jennie Baranczyk a Semifinalist For Naismith National Coach of the Year

The Sooners went 15-3 in their final season of Big 12 Conference play and won the regular season title for the second year in a row.

John E. Hoover | Mar 14, 2024

Oklahoma's Jennie Baranczyk a Semifinalist For Naismith National Coach of the Year /

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Oklahoma Sooners

By OU Media Relations

NORMAN — University of Oklahoma head women's basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk was named one of 10 semifinalists for the Werner Ladder Naismith Women's College Coach of the Year award on Thursday.

Piloting one of the nation's top turnarounds, Baranczyk, named the Big 12's Coach of the Year earlier this month, delivered Oklahoma its second consecutive regular season Big 12 championship after compiling a 15-3 conference record featuring a sweep over runner-up Texas.

The third-year Oklahoma head coach replaced four starters from last season's championship-winning team and, after starting 6-5, won 15 of its next 17 games to jump back into the AP Top 25 and win the league's crown. The Sooners will enter March Madness with a 22-9 record, boasted by a resume that features that third-best winning percentage nationally vs. NET Top 25 teams.

Baranczyk and her staff produced the Big 12 Co-Player of the Year, Skylar Vann, and the league's Newcomer of the Year, Payton Verhulst. The pair were named to the All-Big 12 First Team, with Vann earning a unanimous selection. Vann was Oklahoma's first Big 12 Player of the Year since Courtney Paris in 2009. Additionally, starting point guard Nevaeh Tot and true freshman Sahara Williams earned All-Big 12 honorable mentions after helping guide Oklahoma to its 13th conference championship.

The Sooner head coach was a finalist for WBCA National Coach of the Year in each of the last two seasons, but her inclusion in the 2024 Naismith semifinalist list is her second since arriving at Oklahoma as she was a semifinalist in 2022.

Baranczyk joins Texas coach Vic Schaefer as the Big 12's only semifinalists. Additionally on the list are Lisa Bluder (Iowa), Kenny Brooks (Virginia Tech), Lisa Fortier (Gonzaga), Lindsay Gottlieb (USC), Felisha Legette-Jack (Syracuse), Kevin McGuff (Ohio State), Dawn Staley (South Carolina) and Tara VanDerveer (Stanford).

The Naismith will announce four finalists on March 25.

Published Mar 14, 2024

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.