Summitt credited with helping save Oklahoma program

OKLAHOMA CITY — There’s a lot to admire about the Oklahoma women’s basketball program.

The Sooners (18-2) are ranked second nationally and have a 14-game winning streak. Included is an 86-75 victory over then-No.9 Cal on Dec. 13, during which they set an NCAA record by overcoming a 26-point halftime deficit in regulation.

Oklahoma has one of the nation’s best players in center Courtney Paris and some of the most supportive fans. Saturday afternoon’s turnout against Missouri was estimated at 9,320.

“It’s ridiculous,” freshman guard Whitney Hand said. “We’re playing an unranked team and we still had thousands of fans here.”

Perhaps even more of those fans will be in the Ford Center at 7:30 tonight (TV: ESPN2) to watch Oklahoma play No. 13 Tennessee (16-4).

The Sooners present a formidable roadblock to Lady Vols coach Pat Summitt, who’s one victory shy of career win No. 1,000. And to think she had a helping hand in their presence, period.

Debra Copp, Oklahoma’s former sports information director, sent an e-mail on Friday to Debby Jennings, the Lady Vols associate athletics director for media relations, recounting the events surrounding the 1990 Women’s Final Four in Knoxville. OU athletic officials picked that unlikely time to try to drop the women’s basketball program.

Led by the late Kay Yow, whose funeral was Friday, the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association sprang into action. With the Lady Vols out of the tournament, Summitt was available for interviews on the topic throughout the weekend.

In 2005, after Summitt became the all-time winningest basketball coach, men’s or women’s, at a four-year school, Copp sent her a thankful e-mail.

“With all her victories at Tennessee, the most important one may have been for a school she never coached — the University of Oklahoma,’’ said Copp, who’s the director of publications for OU’s athletic department. “And now it appears to have come full circle. I’m not sure Hollywood could have come up with a story like that.”

Summitt’s memory of that Final Four weekend is foggy, and she downplays her role in what took place. But even she can’t deny the irony of the present circumstances.

“To even think now, they’re ranked second in the country,’’ Summitt said. “They have a great program.”

Because of that, Summitt’s thoughts are squarely in the present, where she and her team have more than one Paris to worry about. While the 6-foot-4 Courtney continues adding to her NCAA-record streak of consecutive double-doubles (112 and counting), twin sister Ashley is having her best season, averaging 14 points and 10 rebounds per game.

“I just think that the key factor for Oklahoma has been Ashley Paris has been their X-factor,’’ Missouri coach Cindy Stein said. “She has done a tremendous job of getting better.”

Hand, meanwhile, has boosted Oklahoma’s perimeter scoring with a team-leading 39 3-pointers.

“Last year, we were not worried about their perimeter scoring and we would just try and pack it in and now you can’t do that,’’ Stein said. “They are all playing really well together.”

Tennessee’s attempt to summon a worthy team response could be stymied on several fronts.

First, there’s the injury situation. Sophomore forward Vicki Baugh continues to be slowed by a left-knee sprain and is, at best, questionable.

Then there’s the absence of freshman forward Amber Gray, who didn’t make the trip because she didn’t finish a conditioning workout.

If Baugh doesn’t play, UT will have nine available players and only three of them will have more than a full season’s worth of experience.

“We all know we can win this game,’’ UT freshman forward Alyssia Brewer said. “It’s just a matter of how hard we want to work on the court. All of the little things that we want to do, getting loose balls, having all the hustle plays, you just have to do the little things. It’s possession after possession.”

Those objectives are both admirable and advisable.

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
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