Oklahoma Sooners hire Drake Bulldogs’ Jennie Baranczyk to succeed Sherri Coale as women’s basketball coach

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2:35 p.m. ET

  • Mechelle VoepelESPN.com

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      Mechelle Voepel covers the WNBA, women’s college basketball and other college sports for espnW. Voepel started beating women’s basketball in 1984 and has been with ESPN since 1996.

Oklahoma has hired Drake’s Jennie Baranczyk as its new women’s basketball coach, the school announced Saturday. She replaces Sherri Coale, who stepped down on March 17 after 25 seasons with the Sooners.

Baranczyk, 39, has spent the past nine seasons with Drake, scoring 192-96 overall and 123-39 in the Missouri Valley Conference, leading the Bulldogs to the NCAA tournament three times.

Oklahoma also recently hired its Missouri Valley men’s basketball coach, as Loyola Chicago’s Porter Moser replaced Lon Kruger, who retired eight days after Coale.

“This is a really exciting day for our university and athletics department as we welcome Jennie Baranczyk as our new head coach for women’s basketball,” said athletics director Joe Castiglione. Her track record of overseeing creative and effective fouls, and producing high win totals, conference championships, and post-season appearances during her time with Drake certainly appealed to our search committee as it assessed the highly competitive candidate pool. well beyond the courts, and it is clear that her personal and professional values ​​are in line with ours.

Jennie prioritizes the overall well-being of everyone in her program, is passionate about empowering her student athletes, and recognizes that a program is only as good as the people. our fans and as she works to bring our program back to Big 12 and national exposure. ”

Drake’s women remained unbeaten in the MVC in 2016-17 and 2017-18, winning the league tournament both seasons. The Bulldogs had a winning streak of 49 games in conference play that ended in 2019.

Drake lost in the championship game of the MVC tournament in 2019 and this year, when Baranczyk was unable to coach in the game due to the COVID-19 protocol. (The 2020 MVC tournament was canceled due to the pandemic.) Drake was 18-12 overall and 13-5 in the MVC this season, going 2-1 in the WNIT.

Drake was ranked in the AP Top 25 poll in the 2016-17 and 2018-19 seasons. Three of Baranczyk’s players combined won five Missouri Valley Conference Player of the Year awards, and she had 24 selections to all conferences during her Drake career.

Baranczyk, then Jennie Lillis, played in Iowa from 2000-2004, where she was a Big Ten selection three times. She began her coaching career with Kansas State from 2004-06, then she was an assistant with Marquette from 2006-10 and with Colorado from 2010-12. In 2012, Baranczyk returned to her hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, to take over Drake, which was her first job as a head coach. She was two-time MVC Coach of the Year.

“It is an honor and a privilege to become the next head coach of the University of Oklahoma women’s basketball program and to follow the highly successful and much admired Sherri Coale,” said Baranczyk. β€œMy coaching philosophy is based on the most powerful human emotion for me and that is love. The players who put on this jersey have to love the game, love games and love OU.

“We’re going to compete at the highest level on the field and in the classroom. We’re going to play hard, play together and be fun to watch. I’m looking forward to being in Oklahoma where there are great people and we can -” and will – compete for championships. “

Coale went 513-294 overall and 253-167 in the Big 12 while he was in Oklahoma from 1996-2021. The Sooners played 19 NCAA tournaments under Coale and went to the Women’s Final Four three times, losing in the 2002 national championship game against UConn and in the national semifinals against Louisville (2009) and Stanford (2010).

Coale, 56, led the Sooners to six Big 12 regular season titles and four league tournament championships. She was inducted into the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.

The Sooners have made it harder for the past four seasons, with a combined total of 48-67 and 29-43 in the Big 12. They last made it to the NCAA Sweet 16 in 2013.

Oklahoma, which was largely limited to a seven-player rotation this season, went 12-12 and lost to Oklahoma State in the quarter-finals of the Big 12 tournament in extra-time.

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