Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 Raegan Beers decision to transfer to Oklahoma last year changed everything for the Sooners.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Beers, who led Oregon State to the Elite Eight last year and was the No. 1 player in the transfer portal after the 2024 NCAA Tournament, came to Oklahoma with big goals. <\/p>\n
She wants to go pro and make it further in March Madness than she had previously done.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there\u2019s a big blue road block standing on the third-seeded Oklahoma\u2019s pathway forward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Sooners are scheduled to play second-seeded Connecticut Saturday in the Sweet 16.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The matchup against women\u2019s college basketball\u2019s most successful team might be daunting for some. <\/p>\n
But not so much Oklahoma.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you think of women\u2019s basketball, you think UConn, you think South Carolina. You think all these really good teams. But I want to put Oklahoma on the map,\u201d forward Sahara Williams said. \u201cSo I think this game is a good test of who we are and see where we want to go and how bad we really want to be good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams signed with Oklahoma out of high school because she believed in coach Jennie Baranczyk\u2019s vision and wanted to help take Oklahoma to new heights.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oklahoma had been on an upward trajectory since Baranczyk took over the program in 2021 as the team made three straight NCAA Tournaments heading into this season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Beers\u2019 arrival in a lot of ways fast tracked that process.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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\u201cGetting Reagan was like, \u2018OK, finally, we\u2019re doing it. It\u2019s coming to life,\u2019 \u201d Williams said. \u201cUnderstand that we have one of the best players in the country in Oklahoma, like, we\u2019re building something.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
But Williams knew she had to get better, work hard and elevate her game. <\/p>\n
Doing what she did as a freshman would simply not be enough.\u00a0<\/p>\n
She watched how Beers operates and tries to follow in some of her footsteps. <\/p>\n
If you enter the gym 30 to 45 minutes before Oklahoma practices, you\u2019ll likely spot Williams and Beers doing 100 Mikan drills or shooting free throws.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Learning to play with Beers \u2014 a true post presence the Sooners have lacked in recent years \u2014 took time. Oklahoma was 6-5 just before Christmas, with half their losses coming against mid-major programs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Each player had to do some reflection. <\/p>\n
Collectively, the Sooners had to improve their 3-point shooting, but individual players had to get comfortable in new roles.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Williams played center last year and spent most of her time defending low block post play. <\/p>\n
But with a true rim protector in Beers, Williams is often now defending the opposing team\u2019s best guard.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Post passing is still a work in progress as is limiting turnovers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve had to kind of fall down and get up and work through that,\u201d Baranczyk said. \u201cI also think that overall, you\u2019re just trying to work on your professional development, your skill set, to be able to play to each other\u2019s strengths. I think the other thing that we\u2019ve really had to go through in that is we can\u2019t be a one-hit wonder. We can\u2019t have where we\u2019re just going to feed Raegan every possession of every game that we lose the rest of our movement. And we\u2019ve had to grow through that and we\u2019ve had to learn a lot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oklahoma has won 11 of its past 12 games. <\/p>\n
But even beyond this season, the future is bright.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The team\u2019s three leading scorers, Beers, Payton Verhulst and Williams, are all expected to return. And just this week, Oklahoma landed 2025 No. 1 recruit Aaliyah Chavez.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThe trajectory is only going up from here,\u201d Beers said. \u201cSince the minute I got here, it has been going up.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic SPOKANE, Wash. \u2014 Raegan Beers decision to transfer to Oklahoma last year changed everything for the Sooners.\u00a0 Beers, who led Oregon State to the Elite Eight last year and was the No. 1 player in the transfer portal after the 2024 NCAA Tournament, came<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":256764,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-256763","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256763"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256763\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":256765,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256763\/revisions\/256765"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}