A wild season to remember for OU's Sherri Coale
OU women’s basketball

It’s a smile so big that it crinkles the corners of her eyes.

"It’s been a lot of fun,” the Oklahoma coach says.

She glances at her players, laughing and goofing on the Municipal Auditorium court after their Big 12 Tournament shootaround.

"The resiliency of these kids is what’s made it so fun,” she says. "No matter what happens ... they seem to ball themselves back up and come back and be ready for more the next day.”

Thing is, Coale had to do the same thing.

Less than a month into this season, she was forced to rebuild her rebuilding team. The Sooners were just starting life without the Paris twins, epic players who led a Women’s Final Four charge a year ago, when Whitney Hand tore her ACL.

Yet as OU starts Big 12 Tournament play today with the No. 3 seeding, a legitimate chance to win the title and a chance to emerge as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, those difficulties have proven to be a non-factor. The Sooners have succeeded when they had plenty of reasons to struggle.

Credit players like Danielle Robinson, Amanda Thompson and Nyeshia Stevenson.

But credit Coale, too.

"It’s always up to us to have our own kind of motivation,” Thompson said, "but just the energy she brings every day is so important to us because we want to give that back to her.

"She just has to be strong for us and keep on motivating us.”

Robinson said, "She knows that we look up to her. Her ability to stay positive and challenge us in a positive way has definitely helped the mindset of our team.”

There have been times when Coale and her Sooners could’ve cratered. After seeing Hand go down. After losing at home to Texas by 18 points. After losing at Texas A&M by 23 points.

But in every instance, they bounced back.

They won six of seven games after Hand tore her knee, won four of five after the Texas loss and throttled Oklahoma State by 33 points after the Texas A&M loss.

Coale says she’s found it easy to stay positive with her team because of how comfortable she is with these players.

"I feel like I have their pulse,” she said.

That comes with having a core of veterans who’ve not only been in the program for a long time but also built bonds with Coale.

She felt such a strong connection with this team that after Hand’s injury, Coale did something she’d never done when one of her players tore her knee. She gathered her team in the locker room right after the game and spelled out the situation.

"OK, we don’t know what the extent of this is yet,” Coale told the players, "but here’s where we are. This is what we have to do.”

Then, she outlined out each player’s duties, what the team would need from them on the court and in the locker room.

"It was a very intimate sort of meeting,” Coale said. "In all the knee injuries that we’ve had and all the key kids that we’ve lost, I’ve never really had that kind of moment with a team before.”

Those bonds have helped buoy the Sooners through the tough times. They have also made the good times even sweeter.

One of Coale’s favorites — Thompson’s 29-point performance on Senior Day.

The coach starts grinning again as she talks about it.

"There’s a part of your soul that says, ‘This is how it’s supposed to be; life is good,’” she says. "That kind of stuff ... you smile for a while.”

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