None doing it better than Coale

Sherri Coale has taken her Oklahoma women’s basketball teams deep into the NCAA Tournament in recent years. She even guided her squad to the Women’s Final Four a year ago, a difficult accomplishment regardless of the talent or the experience.

And yet, this year is the best coaching performance of her career.

The Sooners have lost so much — except for games.

This season was bound to be a struggle after the departure of Courtney and Ashley Paris. You don’t lose two of the greatest players in the program’s history without some sort of a letdown. And when they’re two players who’ve been integral since the moment that they stepped on campus, going on without them is even more difficult.

Then you add in the fact that this squad was going to be short handed. It doesn’t have a full compliment of scholarship players, so depth of talent and, well, just plain depth were bound to be an issue.

Then came the season-ending knee injury to leading scorer Whitney Hand.

A recipe for disaster, right?

Wrong.

The Sooners stand 17-6 overall and 7-3 in Big 12 play after a gutsy overtime victory against Baylor on Wednesday night. It was their second consecutive victory over a top-15 team and a continuation of an amazing season.