OU women's basketball draws a #6 seed, will face #11 James Madison

 
The OU women celebrated as they watched their name come up Monday night during ESPiN's women's selection show, but judging by the quotes Coach Coale gave afterward you could read between the lines and know they weren't really happy about where they wound up.

"We've been 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ... I don't know that we've ever been a 6," OU head coach Sherri Coale said. "We've been just about every other number and it's all about matchups at the end of the day.

"I look at our 11 losses and the tendency is you want to stand up and scream, `six of them were to the top five in the country!' We've really played a difficult schedule. While you may not be rewarded for it by the number of your seed, you're rewarded for it by the experience you get in those situations.

"We're ready, wherever, whoever. Right now, it's all about James Madison."

Coale has a legitimate point considering they were the #3 team in easily the best overall conference in America, so to see that number six next to their name is more than a little disappointing.  Obviously the work will start, or likely did so last night, on preparing for an unfamiliar foe in James Madison.  James Madison was the automatic qualifier from the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) and features player of the year candidate Dawn Evans, a 5-7 guard from Clarksville, Tenn., who leads the Dukes with 23.2 points and 4.5 assists per game.

JMU was 26-7 this season and 16-2 in conference play. The Dukes have seven total wins in eight NCAA Championship appearances and were eliminated in the first round last season by Temple.

It will be the first time in postseason play the Sooners will face a CAA squad. OU is 2-1 all-time against the CAA but has not faced an opponent from that conference since Dec. 1996.

OU and James Madison square off in Charlottesville, Va., in the tournament's first round Sunday, March 20, at approximately 1:45 p.m. Central.