Sooners receive NCAA Tourney bid for 24th time

NORMAN — For the 22nd time since 2000 and 24th overall, the Oklahoma Sooners will play in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship. The regular-season Big 12 champion Sooners earned an at-large bid and will be the No. 5 seed in the Albany I Region.

Big 12 Coach of the Year Jennie Baranczyk’s team will take on No. 12-seeded Florida Gulf Coast in the first round, with the winner taking on the victor of No. 4 seed and host Indiana and No. 13-seeded Fairfield with the pod’s first- and second-round games taking place at Assembly Hall in Bloomington, Ind.

The Sooners and Eagles have never met, and OU is 4-3 all-time as a No. 5 seed, winning those match-ups in 2000, 2015, 2023 and 2024.

OU has now made the tournament as a No. 5 seed or better in each of Baranczyk’s first three seasons. This is just the third time in program history, and the first since 2008-10, that the Sooners have secured a top-five seed in three straight seasons.

The Sooners (22-9) won their first outright conference championship since 2009 in their final year in the Big 12 before joining the Southeastern Conference by posting 15 wins in the league for the first time since 2008-09. Guided by Big 12 Co-Player of the Year Skylar Vann and Newcomer of the Year Payton Verhulst, OU swept Texas, a No. 1 seed in the bracket, and notched seven combined wins over teams that made the tournament. The Sooners played the 11th-toughest schedule in the country, with nearly half (15-of-31) of its games coming against teams that made the tournament.

A staple of the NCAA postseason, the Sooners have now made 24 NCAA Tournaments, including 22 since the turn of the century. The Sooners’ 24 appearances in the tournament are the second most in the Big 12 Conference.

OU has made three Final Fours — 2002, 2009 and 2010 — and 10 Sweet 16s, most recently in 2013. In Baranczyk’s first two seasons, OU advanced to the second round.