Jennie Baranczyk’s Surprising 6 Word Reaction to Finally Advancing to Sweet 16
The Oklahoma Sooners scored a decisive victory over Iowa, 96-62, in Monday afternoon’s women’s basketball NCAA Tournament game. In a postgame press conference, OU head coach Jennie Baranczyk was asked how it feels to finally reach the Sweet 16 for the first time since 2013.
“I thought it would feel different,” she admitted during the press conference.
For her, she elaborated, she’s simply very thankful to be able to continue forward with her “amazing” team.
“I’m just excited that this team gets to keep playing,” she said. “I thought it would feel different. You think, oh it’s going to be amazing once you get past and you’re in the Sweet 16… I just really, I love this team. I love coaching this team, I love the lessons that we continue to learn, and they’ve been hard lessons, and it’s not always sunshine and rainbows, but that’s what makes it so beautiful and amazing. And they test you eveyr day. And we all mess up. We all get up and we keep going. And I just am so glad we get another day together.”
Earlier in the press conference, she addressed Iowa’s early lead.
“They started on fire and they had a lot of hustle plays right away, so we had to settle in…” she said. “Sahara [Williams] did a great job of just getting us steady. … Today’s a big moment. There’s a lot of emotions in the game. I’m just proud of the steadiness that we’ve had.”
She also discussed why they did so well later in the game.
“We are really really good when we’re balanced like that,” Baranczyk said. “When we become the one hit wonder…we’re not nearly as efficient or as good… When we can have balance and we have different players stepping up and do a lot of different things…it’s hard to guard…. They’re a very good basketball team… So we didn’t stop. We never just rested on our laurels… We just stayed competitive.”
Today was a big validation for her team’s hard work, she added.
“We have tried to play to prove a lot, that we were better than we were,” Baranczyk said. “We tried to prove that we were good enough. Or that we belong in the SEC… You have all these things that I think just sometimes are human nature things. Today is just one of those validation points.”
