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Selection Sunday: Oklahoma Women Earn No. 5 Seed in NCAA Tournament

After falling to Iowa State in the Big 12 Tournament semifinals, the Sooners received their NCAA Tournament seeding and matchup on Sunday evening.

Randall Sweet

Selection Sunday: Oklahoma Women Earn No. 5 Seed in NCAA Tournament
Selection Sunday: Oklahoma Women Earn No. 5 Seed in NCAA Tournament /
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For the third consecutive season, Oklahoma is going to the Big Dance. 

After finishing 22-9 and 15-3 in Big 12 play, the Sooners landed a berth in the NCAA Tournament. 

OU was awarded the No. 5 seed and will meet No. 12-seed Florida Gulf Coast in Bloomington, IN at 4 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 23.

No. 1-seed South Carolina, No. 2-seed Notre Dame, No. 3-seed Oregon State and No. 4-seed Indiana are also in the Albany 1 Region with OU.

In Jennie Baranczyk's third season in Norman, Oklahoma won its second consecutive regular season Big 12 Conference title.  

The Sooners took down TCU in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament before falling 85-68 to Iowa State in the semifinals. The Cyclones would go on to lose to the Texas Longhorns in the conference title game. 

The Longhorns, who were swept by OU during the regular season, earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament on Sunday night.

Florida Gulf Coast went 29-4 this season, taking down Central Arkansas in the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament to earn an NCAA Tournament bid. 

Last year, OU was a No. 5-seed in the tournament, taking down No. 12-seed Portland in the first round before falling to No. 4-seed UCLA in the Round of 32.

Oklahoma got off to a slow start this season, losing to Princeton, Tennessee, UNLV, North Carolina and Southern in a six-game span. After the rough stretch, however, the Sooners won 12 of their next 13 games, losing only to Kansas State on the road. 

Baranczyk's team has lost two of its last three contests heading into the tournament, however, after dropping its regular-season finale against the Kansas Jayhawks in Lawrence. 

Led by Big 12 Co-Player of the Year Skylar Vann, standout freshman Sahara Williams and transfers Payton Verhulst and Lexy Keys, OU will have a good chance at advancing to the Round of 32 for the third straight season. 

If the Sooners manage to get past FGCU, they will take on the winner of No. 4-seed Indiana and No. 13-seed Fairfield.

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Randall Sweet
RANDALL SWEET

Randall is a recruiting analyst and staff writer at AllSooners focusing primarily on OU Football and the recruiting trail. Working as a journalist, Randall has covered the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and high school sports across the state. A 2022 University of Oklahoma graduate, Randall hails from Lubbock, TX. While in college, Sweet wrote for the OU Daily in addition to working with Sooner Sports Pad and OU Nightly. Following his time at OU, Sweet served as the Communications Coordinator at Visit Oklahoma City before leaving to join the team at AllSooners. The West Texas native has bylines in the Norman Transcript and is a Staff Writer for Inside the Thunder. Randall holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Oklahoma in Norman, OK.