OKLAHOMA CITY, Okla. – West Virginia ambushed No. 19 Oklahoma with the Big 12 women tournament’s most explosive first half since 2008 en route to an 82-58 win Saturday night in the quarterfinal round.
“We came out ready to play,” said WVU coach Mike Carey. “I knew we were going to be ready to play. Our shootaround today earlier was probably the best shootaround we had all year. They were focused, a lot of energy. In fact I had to cut it down because they were going too hard, so we just cut things down.”
Tynice Martin finished with 21 points for the sixth-seeded Mountaineers (21-10), who jumped ahead 12-0 and led 48-24 by halftime. That was the highest-scoring opening half in the tournament since Texas posted 52 nine years ago.
West Virginia, which led by 37 in the third quarter, collected 20 assists on 33 baskets while shooting 55 percent. Chania Ray had 10 assists.
Teana Muldrow followed with 19 points, eight rebounds, three assists and three blocks, while Katrina Pardee scored 13. Lanay Montgomery added 12 points and seven rebounds.
Oklahoma (22-9), which was led by Maddie Manning’s 14 points, committed 19 turnovers and shot 33 percent.
“I’ve been coaching a long time, and I don’t think that I’ve ever had a team take the floor and appear to be as ill-prepared or as unmotivated as we appeared tonight,” said Sooners coach Sherri Coale. “It’s hard to understand and I’m disappointed by it. I want to publicly apologize to our fans and our administration because that was not what the University of Oklahoma deserves. It is not the way our institution should be represented.
“I want to give West Virginia credit. They were fantastic.”
The Mountaineers will face No. 2-seed Texas in Sunday’s semifinal game at 5 p.m. Eastern.