NORMAN (AP) — Oklahoma coach Sherri Coale took one look at the NCAA women’s basketball bracket and mouthed a one-word assessment: “Perfect.”
Let others argue about which portion of the bracket is tougher or which team received the toughest draw. The Sooners are happy in the knowledge that their postseason run will start at home, could continue in familiar environs and that foes they know well potentially await.
“One game at a time, of course, but it looks like a pretty good bracket,” Oklahoma point guard Danielle Robinson said.
Third-seeded Oklahoma (23-10) will host No. 14 seed South Dakota State (22-10) in a first-round game on Sunday. Win that, and the Sooners next could play Georgia Tech, a team they routed in last year’s NCAA tournament, assuming the Yellow Jackets beat first-round foe Arkansas-Little Rock.
Two wins in Norman would send Oklahoma to the regional in Kansas City, Mo., where Oklahoma in recent days made a run to the Big 12 Conference tournament final. If the seeds hold, the Sooners could play Notre Dame and Nebraska — two teams to which they’ve lost this season but with which they were competitive.
And if the Sooners are fortunate enough to make the Final Four, that will be in San Antonio, the same as in 2002, when Oklahoma reached the national championship game. Plus, Kansas City and San Antonio are easy drives from Norman.
No wonder Coale likes how the tournament sets up for her team.
“I love the fact we’re staying in the Midwest,” Coale said. “We get to go to Kansas City if we win two games at the Lloyd Noble Center. I just think that’s huge. It’s an opportunity for our fans to follow us up there. It’s obviously familiar.
“This bunch of kids, they’re going to be OK with anything. They believe in themselves, and they believe in our team and what we can do and always feel it’s more about us than the other guys.”
Like any coach, Coale first just wants to get through the first round.
“You’ve still got to go play,” Coale said. “There’s not a single team in that bracket that’s going to lay down because they’re in Norman, Oklahoma, or because they’re in Kansas City, or because they had to travel or are out of their comfort zone. People are going to be ready to play because it’s the NCAA Tournament.”
Coale and her players acknowledge they don’t know much about South Dakota State, which won the Summit League tournament title by beating Oral Roberts. The Sooners and Jackrabbits have never played, but Robinson figures to get a scouting report on South Dakota State from her friend Brittany Eskridge, one of Oral Roberts’ players.
As for their potential second-round foe, Oklahoma beat Georgia Tech 69-50 last season on a neutral floor in Iowa City, Iowa, and would have the home-court edge in a rematch.
In the regional semifinal, the Sooners could face second-seeded Notre Dame. The Fighting Irish beat the Sooners 81-71 at the Paradise Jam in the Virgin Islands on Nov. 28, the day after Oklahoma lost starting guard Whitney Hand to a season-ending knee injury.
Top-seeded Nebraska, the Sooners’ Big 12 rival, could await in the regional final. Oklahoma led the then-unbeaten Cornhuskers 63-62 with 3:30 left on Feb. 24 but eventually fell 80-64.
“We’ve played Nebraska. We’ve played Notre Dame,” Oklahoma senior Amanda Thompson said. “Looking back at it, we played them, and I feel like we had a good chance at them. I think it would be real good to get to them again.”
The journey to that opportunity sets up nicely, she said.
“I feel like Norman and Kansas City are two of the places we’ve played the best out of our whole season,” Thompson said. “What better way could we have it?”
