In a rare feat for the 2010-11 season, both the men's and women's basketball teams excelled on the same night to secure two very important (in their own respects) victories. The men DOMINATED a Baylor team that has under achieved all year long, the women were able to hang on for a tough, well earned victory against a well coached Texas Tech squad.
Let's start with the men, who shocked the you know what out of this Sooner fan. I thought they sent a very loud and very clear message with their play in support of their head coach.
There haven't been very many times during this season where, as an OU fan, I have been able to smile when watching this team. There was one of those rare moments during this game and if you watched, you'll know exactly what I'm talking about. At one point in the second half, Tyler Neal goes up for a dunk that he probably had no business even attempting but crazy props to the kid for just going for it. He winds up missing, but getting fouled, which leads to a t.v. timeout and as they are going to commercial the entire bench is out on the court messing with Neal in congratulatory fashion. It's moments like that it is so abundantly clear this team loves playing together and seeing stuff like that makes me really, really happy to be a Sooner fan.
So anyway, back to the game. OU was once again led by Cade Davis and his 24 points, it needs to be said that Davis has put on one of the more impressive displays to end his career in these last few games. He has really stepped his game up and is displaying why all his teammates look to him to lead this team. For the first time I can remember, the Sooners got double figure contributions from almost their entire starting lineup. Pledger had 10 and hit a couple big threes, Cam Clark also had 10 and looked aggressive on offense, and Carl Blair had a great double-double with 14 points and 11 assists! Blair had easily his best game in at least two months and it was obvious the affect it had on the Sooner offense.
As I said before, this team hasn't had a lot of celebratory moments this season so I'm not even going to get into their chances against Texas today. Rather, this is a time to celebrate a dominating win and a really nice sign of a team who enjoys playing for their head coach and went out to make a statement that the speculation surrounding his job security needs to stop. OU will face the whorns this evening in the 6pm (central) slot again on the Big 12 Network.
Check out some video with Capel and the players as well as the women's recap after the jump.
Now on to the women and their revenge game against Tech for the loss they suffered to close out their regular season. The women also got double digit scoring contributions from a starting lineup that hasn't always produced as such throughout the season. Before the game I said Aaryn Ellenberg had to have a good shooting night for OU to avoid the upset, well clearly I'm no genius. Ellenberg finished with 10 points, but did so on 3-15 shooting (1-7 from three). Fortuntately, senior Carlee Roethlisberger had one of the best games of her career scoring 18 points and grabbing several big rebounds. All-American Danielle Robinson actually led the Sooners with 19 points and was clutch from the free throw line down the stretch. Emerging (is star to far of a leap?) post stud 6'6" Nicole Griffin even got into the action putting up her first career double-double getting 10 points and grabbing 11 rebounds.
It was a solid team effort from the ladies last night and their reward is she-beast Danielle Adams and the TAMU Aggies. The Sooners have lost both previous meetings with A&M, although the most recent being a heart breaking loss decided by of all things a missed D-Rob free throw. So much like in the Tech game where the women were looking for a little bit of redemption, they will do the same Friday afternoon in trying to defeat TAMU and advancing to the tournament final.
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