NCAA Women’s Elite Eight: No. 3 Oklahoma Crushes No. 4 Kentucky, 88-68

NCAA women’s Final Four play begins Sunday night. The most interesting teams, naturally, are on the same side of the bracket.
This is not the story of either of those teams.
Oklahoma beat Kentucky by twenty Tuesday night, 88-68, despite a 17-4 Lady Wildcat lead to open the game and despite a halftime score that only favored them by four points, 43-39. UK’s Victoria Dunlap had 31 points (and 13 rebounds), but no teammate came close to matching her productivity -- the next-closest Lady Wildcat had nine. Kentucky also shot 33% from the field to OU’s 62% and managed a dismal 2-17 for three-pointers, which wasn’t particularly helpful considering the Sooners had a 30-point scorer of their own and two girls in double figures backing her up. Nyeshia Stevenson recorded 31 points and 5 steals; Amanda Thompson added 17 points and 14 rebs, and Danielle Robinson had 16 points. Depth may have also played a factor, as Kentucky’s currently fielding an eight-woman team, none of whom had a lot of answers for Oklahoma’s top three women who, by and large, never left the court and never slowed down a step.
It’s not UConn, and they’re not skippered by a barking madwoman like Kim Mulkey, but this unlikely Oklahoma team has survived the parity-happy Big 12 (and done it sans the Paris girls) to stack the Final Four in their conference’s favor. The Sooners will face top-seeded Stanford first, Sunday night at 7:00.