Jennie Baranczyk hopeful her team is 'ready for the moment' vs. No. 3 Texas

Jennie Baranczyk knows her program has a chance to do something special on Wednesday night at the Lloyd Noble Center. 

Now in her third season as the OU women’s basketball coach, Baranczyk has downplayed winning the Big 12 regular season championship most of the year. But this week, she knows the stakes are high.

The No. 20 Sooners have two chances at winning the Big 12 for a second consecutive season. First, at home Wednesday against No. 3 Texas, which would make them outright champions with a win. And then again on Saturday in Lawrence against Kansas for a share of the title if they lose Wednesday. 

“Anytime you’re vying for a conference championship — and we’ve been asked this question so many times and I’ve pushed it off saying, ‘OK it’s still early in the season. Everybody can go for it.’ And now it’s a reality,” Baranczyk said Tuesday. “We’re later in the season. I think it’s special anytime you can do it. Anytime you can sit there and not just dream about it but you potentially have an opportunity to cut some nets down, that’s pretty special.”

Last season, OU was in a similar situation, needing to beat Texas at home to clinch the Big 12 title. The Sooners lost by 22 but responded by winning their next two games to still share the title with Texas. This time around, Baranczyk is hopeful her team is ready for the moment and doesn’t put too much pressure on themselves as they did a year ago. 

“We’ve gotta make sure we’re not trying to make it — not that we’re not trying to make it bigger than it is because obviously it’s a huge deal. But it’s one that we’ve gotta continue to have fun playing, continue to grow, continue to get better. And I think that’s something we learned a year ago that I’m really hopeful we get to learn tomorrow. So it’s not always in life that you get the same opportunity twice and the same thing happened last year where this game became so big, we weren’t ready for it. So I’m excited for us to just — at some point, that game’s gonna be a game. And we’ve gotta really work hard tomorrow.”

Beating the Longhorns will be no easy feat. Texas hasn’t lost a game since losing to the Sooners on Jan. 24 and are currently projected as a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. 

Led by freshman superstar center Madison Booker and senior forward DeYona Gaston — who missed the game on Jan. 24 — the Longhorns have been one of the best teams in the country over the past month. 

“DeYona Gaston is back and that’s obviously a huge difference, but I feel like they’re just really good,” Baranczyk said. “We know that and so I don’t think that we are going to really focus on what’s so much different in terms of them. We’ve got to be really good. We’ve got to rebound the basketball, clearly. And we’ve got to really guard the paint. And then, offensively, we’ve got have really good movement.”

OU will have the home-court advantage, though. And that could be a big boost, as the Sooners had their largest crowd of the season for Bedlam. Baranczyk is hopeful fans show up for the game, not just because of how big of a game it is, but because they love the program and its trajectory. 

“It’s my hope that people don’t necessarily come because it’s Texas or even because it’s for a conference championship,” Baranczyk said. “My hope is that people come because they’ve come before and they’ve fallen in love with this team and they want to come back and they want to be a part of it. And I think that anybody that comes to our games, and you guys have been to plenty, you can see people feel a part of this… To me, don’t come because it’s Texas. I don’t really care to see one Horns Down, one Beat Texas shirt. I don’t want to see any of that. And I want you to come because you love this team. Come and be part of it. Come and be part of it. And that’s, to me, that’s more of the focus than it is about (Texas). 

“Because what if we’re playing somebody else in our league? And I know we’re not and I know Texas is really good and I understand rivalries. I totally get that. I also understand there’s an element at some point, people are going to really start to come here because they love this team.”