Preview: No. 2 UConn vs. No. 3 Oklahoma (Sweet Sixteen)

How to watch

Date: Saturday, Mar. 29

Time: 5:40 p.m. ET/2:40 p.m. local time

Location: Spokane Arena, Spokane, WA

TV: ESPN

Stream: ESPN.com/watch

Radio: UConn Sports Network (97.9 Fox Sports and affiliates)

3-seed Oklahoma Sooners

Record: 27-7 (11-5 SEC)

Location: Norman, Oklahoma

Head coach: Jennie Baranczyk (fourth season)

Scouting the Sooners

Statistical leaders

Points: 17.5 — Raegan Beers
Rebounds: 9.3 — Raegan Beers
Assists: 4.0 — Payton Verhulst
Steals: 1.4 — Payton Verhulst
3-point %: 34.8 — Payton Verhulst

Series history

UConn is a perfect 13-0 all-time against Oklahoma, including 2-0 in the NCAA Tournament. The teams first squared off in Dec. 1999 and later that season, the Huskies beat the Sooners in the Sweet Sixteen, 102-80.

Two years later, they again faced off twice. UConn won the regular season meeting in Hartford then defeated Oklahoma in the 2002 national championship game without making a single 3-pointer.

All but one game in the series has been decided by double-digits. The lone exception was 2018-19 when the Napheesa Collier and Katie Lou Samuelson-led Huskies won 72-63 in Norman. They last met in 2019-20, an 81-57 win for UConn at Mohegan Sun Arena.

How they got here

Oklahoma finished third in the SEC but bowed out to top-seeded South Carolina in the semifinals of the conference tournament. The Sooners earned a 3-seed then beat 14-seed Florida Gulf Coast and 6-seed Iowa in the Norman sub-regional.

Meanwhile, UConn took care of 15-seed Arkansas State and 10-seed South Dakota State by a combined 103 points.

This is Oklahoma’s 11th trip to the Sweet Sixteen but first since 2013. The Sooners have advanced to the Elite Eight three times — 2002, 2009, 2010 — but have never won a national championship. As for the Huskies, they’ve been to 31 straight Sweet Sixteens.

By the numbers

28 — UConn is 28-3 all-time in Sweet Sixteens. The Huskies previously lost in 1999, 2005 and 2023.

32 — Paige Bueckers needs 32 points to pass Katie Lou Samuelson for fifth on UConn’s all-time scoring.

20 — Aubrey Griffin is now 20 points from 1,000 in her career.

3 — This will be UConn’s third game ever in the state of Washington. The Huskies previously traveled to the Evergreen State in Nov. 2000 to play the UW Huskies and then for the 2023 regionals, where they lost to Ohio State in Seattle.

5 — Oklahoma coach Jennie Baranczyk has gone up against UConn five times in her career. She faced the Huskies as a player with Iowa in the second round of the 2002 NCAA Tournament and then four times an assistant at Marquette from 2006-10. UConn is 5-0 in those games.