The Jennie Baranczyk Era Tips Off at Oklahoma on Sunday

The Sooners will host Rogers State in a exhibition game at 2 p.m. on Sunday.

The Jennie Baranczyk era has arrived.

Oklahoma women’s basketball coaching legend Sherri Coale retired in March after 25 years guiding the ship for the Sooners, and Joe Castiglione turned to an energetic rising star from Drake to follow Coale.

Sporting a free-flowing, exciting offense, Baranczyk hopes to make her mark on the program immediately as the OU takes on Rogers State at the Lloyd Noble Center on Sunday an exhibition game.

The transition at the top has been pretty smooth for the new coaching staff, which Baranczyk said was a credit to what Coale had built in Norman over the ears.

“I think the really nice thing has been everyone has been so open,” Baranczyk said in a Zoom press conference on Friday “…It’s a testament to the longtime culture and foundation of this program that we were able to come in and have such an incredible team already in place in terms of them being open, willing and really they love and care about each other so much and I think that’s something that’s so special.”

But there will be growing pains. Baranczyk’s offensive system is designed to empower the players, putting all of the reads and decisions in their hands while they pass and move in a position-less offense.

Due to the different nature of how Baranczyk wants to play the game, she said every member of the team, whether experienced veteran or wide-eyed new comer, has basically reset to the very beginning.

“Since the system isn’t established yet, everybody’s a freshman. So it’s just different,” Baranczyk said. “The nice part is there are some similarities, but there’s always going to be differences to. And so just learning different spacing, just learning different language, those kinds of things are really exactly where we need to be. But you’ll definitely get to see glimpses and you’ll see a lot of promise.”

Sunday will provide Oklahoma the chance to battle against another team for the first time since Baranczyk was appointed as the head coach on April 10, and she’s looking forward to getting back into a normal game day routine with the team, as well as seeing how they compete for the first time in a game setting.

“I think the biggest thing for us is how we come out of the gates,” Baranczyk said. “We haven’t been able to fill the stands (last year), we haven’t been able to do that and so that’s a huge part is to be able to get our fans back. We haven’t been able to run out of the tunnel with the lights on. We haven’t been able to do all of those things so some of it is just going to be logistic.

“… But in terms of play, all we want is them to just play and have fun. So for me, success is always, did we get better? And there’s a lot of things we’re going to have to do to get better. And did we have fun? And can we see that we’re getting better and having fun, and that’s really always the ultimate goal.”

Oklahoma and Rogers State is scheduled for 2 p.m. at the Lloyd Noble Center on Sunday, and admission to the contest is free. 

---

Want to join the discussion? Click here to become a member of the AllSooners message board community today!

Sign up for your premium membership to AllSooners.com today, and get access to the entire Fan Nation premium network!

Follow AllSooners on Twitter to stay up to date on all the latest OU news.