Ranked Oklahoma shakes Southeast women 84-62

The Oklahoman

NORMAN, Okla. -- If not for all the turnovers, who knows? Southeast Missouri State might have had the upset of the very early women's college basketball season.

For the third straight year, Southeast traveled to Oklahoma for a game against the Sooners. And for the third straight year, they lost by a lopsided count. Friday, it was 84-62 at Lloyd Noble Center.

Still, this time was different. Southeast Missouri State's Tatiana Conceicao scored a game-high 26 points, and Chandra Brown had a game-best 11 rebounds, as Southeast gave the 21st-ranked Sooners all they wanted for most of the game.

"It isn't like we didn't play well tonight; we did," said coach B.J. Smith, who grew up in Pawhuska, Okla. "I liked what I saw."

What Smith saw was his team tied with Oklahoma 38-38 at halftime. This despite 18 first-half turnovers.

"That's what we talked about at halftime," said Smith. "If we eliminated those turnovers ... we could have been up 15 or 16."

Oklahoma (1-0) used a 12-2 run to build a 50-42 lead seven minutes into the second half and finally shook Southeast.

Southeast (0-1) shot 60 percent from the floor (15 of 25) in the opening half. But after the break, Oklahoma held Southeast to 27.3 percent shooting (6 of 22), forced another 13 turnovers and eventually ran the lead to 24 points.

The Sooners shot 49.2 percent for the game and had 25 assists.

Senior guard Dionnah Jackson led Oklahoma with a team-high 23 points and a game-high eight assists. Jackson hit on 9 of 11 shots.

Sophomore reserve forward Krista Sanchez, who played only a combined 26 minutes in Oklahoma's two preseason games, went for a career-high 17 points in 25 minutes Friday.

As for Southeast Missouri State, Conceicao's debut performance included 9-of-15 shooting, a team-high five assists and three steals. Natalie Purcell added 15 points.

Conceicao, a transfer from Western Nebraska Community College and one of six junior college transfers and 11 newcomers on this season's squad, didn't surprise Smith with her outing.

"I coached (former OU players) Rosalind Ross and Maria Villarroel in junior college," said Smith, who coached at Northeast Oklahoma A&M before coming to Southeast.