The annual Naismith Women’s College Basketball Player of the Year watch list was announced on Thursday and it includes two Sooners. The players on the list are Aaryn Ellenberg and Whitney Hand-Jones.

Hand-Jones who married Sooners QB Landry Jones over the Summer will still go by Hand on the court, but will be listed as Whitney Jones elsewhere. Hand averages 16.5 points and a team-leading 7.0 rebounds so far this season. She is fifth among the Big 12 Conference’s active career scoring and rebounding leaders.

Ellenberg has been the team’s leading scorer so far this season, averaging 21 points per game. She holds the record at Oklahoma for all-time 3-pointers scored, with 179.

The Sooners are sitting at a 1-1 record after a surprising loss Wednesday night against UCLA. Even with Ellenberg and Hand’s 43 combined points, the Sooners still fell short. The Sooners got completely beat under the backboard for offensive rebounds, giving up 24. Coach Sherri Coale after the game:

I’m disappointed with our effort and our response to the physical play. If that’s the way they’re going to play then we have to adjust to it, and we have to fight back and be just as physical as they’re being. I didn’t think we responded in the right way.

You don’t beat anybody when you give up 24 offensive rebounds. It’s just a number that’s unheard of. At halftime, 23 of their points were from offensive rebounds, that is us beating ourselves. All of this stems from the physicality, on the ball and away from the ball.

The Sooners move on to host St. Louis on Sunday for game 3.

The Sooner Women hoops team dominated the Michigan Wolverines Sunday night in the first round of the women’s NCAA Tournament. Aaryn Ellenberg had an outstanding 28 points, hitting 10 3-pointers. Ellenberg had limited playing time in the first half due to foul trouble, but came out firing on all cylinders in the 2nd, scoring 13 of the Sooners first 14 points.

The Sooner defense held the Wolverines to only one basket over a 5 minute span and were never down. The closest it was at one point was an 8-point lead. Whitney Hand also had a great night for the Sooners, scoring 12 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.

The Wolverines’ lead scorer, Carmen Reynolds, put them the closest they had been all night to catching up with the Sooners, by hitting 3 3-pointers to make the score 66-58. Reynolds ended up scoring 20 points, and their normal high scorer, Rachel Sheffer, was held to three.

The leader board for the game:

The win pushed the Sooners to 8-1 at home during the NCAA tournament. The last time they lost, they were the lower-seeded team. This same scenario will be played out Tuesday night, when Oklahoma will be taking on No. 3 seed St. John’s.