When Texas Tech women’s basketball plays Oklahoma, it feels more like a track meet than a basketball game. Going into Wednesday’s matchup, at least one team scored 80 points in all but one matchup since 2019.
The pattern continued Wednesday as the No. 19 Sooners (12-2, 3-1) took down the Lady Raiders 89-79 at the United Supermarkets Arena.
The Lady Raiders (13-4) fall to 1-3 in the Big 12, with all three Big 12 losses coming to ranked teams.
Oklahoma didn’t shoot great in the first half but shot 61.8% in the second half to put up 51 points on their way to victory.
Tech super-senior Bre’ Scott put up 23 points on an uber-efficient 8-for-11 shooting while Bryn Gerlich had her second straight game with at least 15 points, putting up 18 points and adding six rebounds and six assists, even as it ended in a loss for Texas Tech.
Bryn Gerlich said it was hard to have one lapse at the end of the game and lose it after leading most of the way. She said that’s why the team is so frustrated with the loss.
Before the game, Tech head coach Krista Gerlich talked about making sure Tech controls the pace and gets back on transition defense. At first, that wasn’t happening as Oklahoma got out to an 8-0 lead in 69 seconds.
Then, the Lady Raiders settled down as they slowly clawed their way back on the backs of freshmen Jasmine Shavers and Bailey Maupin, then fellow freshman Kilah Freelon came off the bench to hit a buzzer-beater jumper to give Tech a 20-19 lead.
Although they played good defense throughout, the second quarter is when Tech’s seniors got involved in the scoring department, with Scott and Bryn Gerlich leading the way in a back-and-forth quarter as Tech sustained their lead into halftime.
Ana Llanusa’s 16 first-half points were the main thing keeping Oklahoma in it as their starters all had a positive plus-minus, but five of the six reserve players had a negative plus-minus.
The Sooners finally got their lead back, however, off an 12-0 run in the third quarter capped by two layups from Skylar Vann, who started the game 1-for-7 before the two straight makes.
The Lady Raiders lost their offensive touch in that run, not scoring a single point in the paint in the third quarter after scoring 18 in the first half. However, they ended the quarter with four free throws from Bryn Gerlich and two buckets from Rhyle McKinney to work at the Oklahoma lead and cut it to a point at the end of the third quarter.
The Sooners continued to find ways to score, and the Tech defense was smaller throughout the second half as they didn’t play centers Ella Tofaeono and Jazmaine Lewis a combined six minutes.
Krista Gerlich said they were still getting outrebounded and were not able to help as much on transition defense. Oklahoma outrebounded Texas Tech 47 to 26.
It didn’t help that Tech’s Katie Ferrell fouled out for the fourth straight game, and this time, she only played 17 minutes.
Vann continued to cut inside for easy buckets for Oklahoma, finishing the game 6-for-13 after her tough start. She and Llanusa led Oklahoma’s 14-2 run that Taylor Robertson finished with a three to give the Sooners a 13-point lead.
It looked like Scott and Bryn Gerlich had something to say as they each made a triple to cut the Oklahoma lead to seven points, but Robertson had another triple to ice it for good.
“We knew there would be some runs,” Krista Gerlich said. “We told our kids if they were up 20 or down 20, they better expect a run. I knew that Oklahoma would continue to shoot the basketball, so even if we were down I knew that we could get back in, and so we just told them to keep fighting, but we can’t have empty possessions back-to-back, and that’s what happened…it turned into transition buckets for them.”
Up Next
Krista Gerlich said the underclassmen are adapting to Big 12 play and recognizing it’s a different level of basketball.
She also talked about learning from the loss, and she said a big emphasis they’ve had is executing down the stretch of games. They typically have won the fourth quarter and gone on to win games, especially games like this one, but they’ll learn from this tough loss.
The Lady Raiders go on the road for their next game Saturday at 4 p.m. against Kansas State (12-5, 1-3) before coming back home to play Texas (12-5, 3-1) Jan. 18.
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