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Oklahoma women's basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk speaks to the media about the Sooners on the University of Oklahoma campus in Norman, Okla., Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Oklahoma's Jennie Baranczyk Continues to Raise Expectations for Sooners

Originally posted on Oklahoma Sooners on SI
By Ryan Aber | Last updated Oct 23, 2025 10:31 AM ET

Jennie Baranczyk isn’t concerned about the high expectations surrounding her program this season.

The OU women’s basketball team comes into the season ranked sixth in the preseason, its highest preseason ranking since 2008, and is often mentioned among Final Four contenders with a group of returners that includes Raegan Beers, Payton Verhulst and Sahara Williams, plus adds Aaliyah Chavez, the No. 1 recruit in this year’s class.

“This team is a really special team that is normal. They’re like us,” Baranczyk said. “They’re like all of us. They’re very Oklahoma. They love and care about each other, they’ll fall down, they’ll get up, and then they’ll do something really freaking cool.

“I’m excited about it. Let’s not make any mistake, we’ve got to fill this place to be as good as we want to be and can be.”

The Sooners start their season Nov. 3 at Lloyd Noble Center against Belmont, a week before taking on No. 3 UCLA in Sacramento.

Baranczyk said the outside attention hasn’t affected how she’s approached this season.

“I don’t really care what other people think of us,” Baranczyk said. “I care what we think of us when we step on the floor and we perform. You don’t get to pick your ranking. You don’t get to pick what other people think. Because people are going to think really good things, people are going to think really bad things and quite honestly, if we worry about that, we’re going to be on a rollercoaster that we don’t get to control. That’s not what we want to do.”

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When Baranczyk took over for legendary coach Sherri Coale, the Sooners were struggling, having gone just 32-52 over Coale’s last three seasons.

But the cupboard was far from bare, as Coale holdovers Ana Llanusa, Taylor Robertson, Liz Scott, Skylar Vann and Madi Williams all played significant roles in OU’s surge under Baranczyk.

She was able to maintain that continuity as the program shifted under her leadership and the world of college athletics shifted seismically.

Then she’s been able to maintain that, largely avoiding key defections in the transfer portal and building the majority of her program through high school recruiting while supplementing with transfer portal additions like Beers and Verhulst.

“This team is one that right now if you struggle in the world of NILs and transfer portal and all that, you’re going to watch a team grow,” Baranczyk said. “You’ve seen these players play for a long time. This is a team that you want to be able to come and you want to watch because they have fun playing.”

Baranczyk spent part of the offseason as an assistant coach on the USA Women’s AmeriCup team that featured Beers. Duke coach Kara Lawson was the head coach and Old Dominion coach DeLisha Milton-Jones was another assistant.

It was a welcome respite from the ever-changing landscape of college basketball, and was a learning experience for Baranczyk.

“I think Kara Lawson’s really good, obviously she’s going to be out next Olympic coach,” Baranczyk said. “We have really unique and different styles so it was really good for me as an assistant coach to be able to see what, one, what I think is important as an assistant but also what somebody else does and how they run a program. I loved that. I loved the work that it took.

“Quite honestly, at that time of the year, we weren’t talking a lot of basketball because it was all portal, it was all rev-share, it was all court cases, it was all fundraising, it was all trying to keep your team. It was just a really hard time and we went there and you got to talk basketball. And then you got to talk basketball with these incredible players, it was so cool.”

Baranczyk coached point guards for the team, coaching stars like Vanderbilt’s Mikayla Blakes, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and TCU’s Olivia Miles.

“They’re all so different, so powerful, so incredible,” Baranczyk said. “It was fun to coach them knowing that we were going to have the next one in Aaliyah coming. That also taught me a lot that everybody’s different … but you can put them in positions to really shine.”

Now, Baranczyk returns with not only that experience but also the experience of having coached through the gauntlet of the SEC last season, when the Sooners went 11-5 in conference play and 27-8 overall.

“The fans in the SEC, they know and love our sport, and so they show up for it,” Baranczyk said. “So if we want to be able to do something really special here, we have to be able to continue to elevate women’s basketball just like the rest of the country is.

“And I’ve said this a thousand times since I’ve been here, if you come once you’re going to come twice, and with this team, you’re not going to want to come twice, you’re going to want to get season tickets. This team is a really special team.”

This article first appeared on Oklahoma Sooners on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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