Sooners end year of frustration against top teams

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - To Sherri Coale, it seemed like she was watching the same game over and over again.

After making it to two straight Final Fours, her Oklahoma squad this year couldn’t reproduce the same kind of signature wins.

The Sooners lost all eight of their games this season against teams ranked in the top 10 and went 23-4 against everyone else. They made it to the NCAA tournament’s round of 16 with an upset of No. 11 Miami in the second round, but faltered against eventual Final Four participant Notre Dame.

“I think the most frustrating thing for me is that we had that game in our gun chamber all year. That game, I’m not talking about the good one, I’m talking about the bad one,” Coale said Wednesday. “The one we played against Notre Dame, the same game we played against Connecticut, the same game we played (against Baylor) in Waco earlier this year.

“We had that game where we lost confidence, where we froze, where we ’halfway-ed’ everything that we did.”

Coale called the big-game struggles a reflection of the Sooners’ youth and a struggle to find chemistry through lineup changes and injuries. Co-captain Whitney Hand returned at midseason after missing a year because of knee surgeries, and the Oklahoma later shuffled freshman Nicole Griffin into the starting lineup at center in place of sophomore Joanna McFarland.

In the final three weeks of the season, Coale said the absence of reserve Lyndsey Cloman because of a back injury also had an impact.

“We just kind of had those things that plagued us along the way that can affect consistency,” Coale said.

From this year’s squad, the Sooners will lose second-team All-American Danielle Robinson at point guard, starting power forward Carlee Roethlisberger and reserve guard Lauren Willis. Coale credited the group with being diligent workers who created the strong practice habits that allowed the back-to-back Final Four trips to happen.

Robinson also developed _ even to Coale’s surprise _ over the course of her career into one of the game’s most dynamic players. She’s one of only four players to surpass 2,000 points, 700 assists and 300 steals in her career.

“Until you don’t have a kid whose hands you can put the ball in at the end of a game and say, `Go make a play,’ I don’t know that you can really value that as much. I’ve had that and I’m going to miss it desperately,” Coale said.

“We’ll find another person to run the point and we’ll find another way to be very, very effective.”

Coale’s group will grow even younger next season. Backup guard Jasmine Hartman will be the only fourth-year senior, and Coale is leaning on Hand to continue in the leadership role she’s held even while missing so much time.

Among the key tasks before next season is to regain that “resolve” that the Sooners were able to show during key moments in their previous two seasons.

“At the end of the day, always as coaches what we want is for our kids to perform at the top end of their potential every night,” Coale said, “and we maybe went over the top a time or two, but we weren’t able to do that every night.”