Just 54 seconds into her debut, LeeLee Bell displayed her versatility and led the Sooners to a massive win to begin the season.
No. 21 Oklahoma women's basketball team beat No. 12 North Carolina 91-79 Monday in the Oui Play season-opener in Paris, France. The Sooners took the first quarter to find their footing, but were led by freshman LeeLee Bell to win by double-digits over a top-12 team in the Tar Heels.
OU has 10 underclassmen this season and plenty of inexperience, but that didn't matter in the Sooners' win, mixing lineups with transfer seniors and newly-acquired freshmen and sophomores.
"I think you got to see a lot of different rotations," said OU coach Jennie Baranczyk. "I think we don't have anything answered, but what we do know is that we'll play hard… We didn't answer anything but I do think we're going to have a lot of really good things to work with."
Bell is OU's starting center, however she brings a different flavor than what the Sooners are used to with former All-American Raegan Beers.
Bell, a 6-foot-3-inch freshman from North Dakota, brings more versatility to the Sooners run-and-gun offense. She can shoot from beyond the arc and can also dominate the post. She displayed that in the first minute of her debut with a 3-pointer well beyond the arc.
She finished her debut with a game-leading 25 points with eight rebounds and four assists. Bell went 4-of-7 from 3-point range, showing her versatile playstyle that fits perfectly in OU coach Jennie Baranczyk's fast-paced offense.
Bell paired well with OU's senior leader and forward Sahara Williams, quickly forming a dominant frontcourt for opposing teams to plan for all three phases on offense.
Williams also displayed a more-advanced way of versatile scoring as she got 22 points with three 3-pointers.
She's been one of the better players for the Sooners the past few seasons, but is now the senior leader working to do everything her team needs her to do to win basketball games.
"I think that's what's so special about me and who I am is I can literally do, kind of, anything," Williams said. "Don't mean to toot my own horn, but I think that's something I really worked hard on. And I think, like Jennie said, being able to stretch the floor and shoot, I think has really helped not only me, but my team. That was something my team needed me to do, and so that's what I did."
Sophomore star Aaliyah Chavez didn't have her best game in Paris, however navigated the second half with a veteran-like poise that helped her team to a resounding victory.
Chavez finished with 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting from the field. She didn't play much in the first half as she got into foul trouble early in the first quarter.
She did still finish with a team-high six assists and also displayed more defense with two blocks and two steals.
The Sooners got to see some new additions contribute to the win as well. Kansas State transfer Jordan Speiser finished with eight points, five rebounds and two steals. She had a great floor balance with most of the first-group and had plenty of intense defensive possessions.
Maryland transfer Isimenme Ozzy-Momodu gave the Sooners 14 bench minutes with five points and seven rebounds. Virginia transfer Sa'Myah Smith had 20 minutes off the bench with four points and five rebounds.
The Sooners also saw improvement from sophomores in their second season in Norman like Keziah Lofton who got her first start, Caya Smith who provided 18 solid defensive minutes off the bench and Brooklyn Stewart who got the start as well.
The young OU team got a massive win despite all the distractions with going to Paris and opening the season against a UNC team ranked No. 12 in the country. Baranczyk doesn't feel much is solved after Game No. 1, but feels it's a perfect starting point for the Sooners.
"You got to see how we can compete on a big stage," Baranczyk said. "We're such a young team that sometimes it's not really easy for young teams to be able to turn it on and then turn it off and then turn it on and then turn off. You need kind of a warm up, and so I do feel like we came out with great energy."
