Controversial ending makes loss to Oklahoma even harder for Texas women’s basketball

NORMAN, Okla. — Following a 71-70 loss to Oklahoma at the Lloyd Noble Center on Wednesday evening, the Texas Longhorns chose to blame themselves.

Referees make for good scapegoats, though, and it’s unlikely that many Texas fans would have minded if some burnt-orange ire was directed toward the officials. But that wasn’t the tactic Madison Booker used when she was asked if she was fouled on the game’s final play.

“Did I get fouled? I really don’t know,” the freshman guard said.

“That’s a good answer,” said UT coach Vic Schaefer, who was seated to Booker’s right at the postgame press conference.

What about the controversial traveling call on Booker that set up the game-winning sequence for Oklahoma?

“We can say ‘the refs’ all we want, but I think we kind of got riled up at the end when those two calls happened,” Booker said. “I think we were just thinking about other things than just getting a rebound. A lot of factors was affecting us and our mental.”

In the end, Texas wasn’t beaten by the officiating crew. The Longhorns were done in by Sooners Lexy Keys, Skylar Vann and Payton Verhulst.

Keys hit the game-winning 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds left to lift Oklahoma to a one-point victory that secured the Big 12’s outright championship. The Sooners split last year’s conference championship with Texas, but they had last finished a season alone atop the Big 12 standings in 2009.

“First, just congratulate Oklahoma on winning the championship,” Schaefer said. “It’s awfully hard to do and coach (Jennie) Baranczyk and her team played really hard tonight and made one more play than we did.”

A wild ending to a wild game

Oklahoma was playing catch-up for much of Wednesday’s game, but Texas failed to take advantage of a 15-point lead that it built in the first half and the nine-point edge it held with 8:56 remaining. And Texas still led by three points before the wild sequence that ended the game.

With 26 seconds left, Vann made one of two free throws. The miss came on Vann’s second attempt and that set off a wild scramble for the ball. Oklahoma point guard Nevaeh Tot eventually got her hands on it, but her subsequent layup attempt missed and Booker grabbed the rebound. Booker, however, was called for traveling as she tried to scoot upcourt even though replays suggested that she may not have had possession of the ball in the first place.

“I’ll have to go back and look at it, but I’m really disappointed that something like that happens in a game of this magnitude from the vantage point that was made from,” Schaefer said. “I can’t really comment on that.”

Following the turnover, Vann missed twice. But after her second miss, Vann beat UT guard Shaylee Gonzales to the loose ball and was able to save it from going out of bounds with a pass to an open Keys, who then nailed the decisive 3-pointer.

“We had the opportunity to grab the rebound, it fumbled,” Gonzales said. “It’s just very unfortunate. We worked super hard to prepare for this game and we thought we had it. Unfortunately, we just didn’t end with the win.”

Sooners made the most of their second chances

Oklahoma finished with a 21-5 edge in offensive rebounds and scored 13 second-chance points. Oklahoma shot just 35.7% from the field.

“Twenty-one offensive boards was our Achilles,” Schaefer said.

After Keys knocked down her big shot, Texas called a timeout and drew up one last play. Booker drove to the basket after the inbounds pass, but Vann collapsed defensively and Texas was unable to get off a good look.

Booker finished with a game-high 26 points and also contributed seven assists and eight rebounds. Gonzales and Jones each added 10 points, but the two veterans combined to attempt just two shots in the second half.

Verhulst led the Sooners with 18 points while Keys scored 16. Despite being the shortest player on the court on Wednesday, the 5-foot-3 Tot led all players with her 10 rebounds and she also distributed eight assists.

Oklahoma, which recorded a 91-87 win over UT in Austin last month, will close out its regular season at Kansas on Saturday. Texas can secure the second seed in the Big 12 tournament by beating BYU this weekend.

“There’s still so much in front of us,” Texas guard Shay Holle said. “We’ve got to learn from it, but we can’t mope. Got to put our head down and go to work.”