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NORMAN — A career-best performance from Payton Verhulst led No. 23 Oklahoma to a dominant 103-74 win over Oral Roberts at Lloyd Noble Center on Sunday.
Verhulst poured in a career-best 32 points on 12-of-15 shooting with six rebounds, six assists and three blocks as Oklahoma (3-0) scored 100 points for the sixth time under head coach Jennie Baranczyk. The Sooners dished out 30 assists in the win, the most for an OU team in the Big 12 era and opened the season 3-0 for the third consecutive year.
“I’m really proud of how we played today,” Baranczyk said. “I thought that Oral Roberts tested us and we answered the way we should. There were some things we can take to work on, but really excited for our state that we played this game and got to play in front of a lot of young people.”
Verhulst is the first player in at least the last 24 seasons of Division I women’s basketball to score 32 points on 80% shooting with six assists and three blocks against a Division I opponent. The De Soto, Kan., product’s 32 points are the second-most of the Baranczyk era, and the guard is just the second Sooner since 2001 to post 32 points, six rebounds and six assists, joining Danielle Robinson, who did it in 2010. She was a perfect 5-of-5 from deep, joining Taylor Robertson as the only Sooners to ever make a handful of 3-pointers without a miss in program history.
“I think I was just hitting shots today,” Verhulst added. “My teammates put me in position to hit those shots and today they went down. The depth of our team is great and so for us, if you just continue to follow our games this year, you’ll see that we’re going to have four, five or six people in double figures, and today it was my day.”
After Oral Roberts (1-2) opened the game on a 7-2 run, the Sooners responded with a 21-3 answer to take a commanding 23-10 lead late in the first quarter. But the Golden Eagles sunk four shots over the final two minutes of the frame to cut OU’s lead to 25-20 after one. ORU scored the first basket of the second quarter to cut the OU lead to three, but OU used a 9-0 response to build the lead back to double-digits and held a 44-32 lead at the break – Oklahoma’s first halftime lead of the season.
Despite multiple Sooner runs in the third, OU struggled to put away the high-scoring Golden Eagles as the in-state foes each scored 25 points in the third quarter. But the fourth quarter belonged to the Crimson and Cream as the Sooners closed the game on a 20-6 run to pull away, score 103 points and win 103-74.
Outside of Verhulst’s historic day, the Sooners also had a record day. The team’s 39 field goals were tied for the most of the Baranczyk era with last year’s win over Oral Roberts. OU’s 30 assists set a program high in the Big 12 era, knocking off the team’s three games of 29 assists under Baranczyk. The Sooners’ 103 points were the second most under Baranczyk, trailing only last year’s 105 scored vs. the Golden Eagles, and OU’s output of 100 points, 50 rebounds and 30 assists marked the first time in at least 15 years that a Sooner squad hit those marks.
Aubrey Joens scored 13 points with a trio of 3-pointers, while Lexy Keys and Skylar Vann each scored 10 points to help the offensive effort. Beatrice Culliton added six points, six rebounds and two blocks off the bench, and Kennady Tucker made three of her four shots to score seven points.
Oklahoma shot 52% (39-of-75) as a team and made 12 3-pointers in the win. OU has shot above 50% in two of its three games this season, and the team’s 50 rebounds marked the 15th occasion under Baranczyk.
