Post-Bedlam Incident Overblown According to Both Coaches

STILLWATER – Personally, I wasn’t there but news traveled fast from Gallagher-Iba Arena on Saturday down the street to O’Brate Stadium where I was calling a baseball game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and Austin Peay. Oklahoma State won the baseball game in a 2-1 pitching duel, but that wasn’t nearly as exciting as the aftermath of the 80-71 Oklahoma win over the Cowgirls. 

Oklahoma (24-5/14-4) clinched a tie for the Big 12 regular season championship with the win and they are the No. 2 seed in the upcoming Big 12 Women’s Championship Tournament in Kansas City, Mo. Oklahoma State (20-10/10-8) had a much better than projected season under first-year coach Jacie Hoyt and the Cowgirls were set to honor their seniors with Senior Day after the game. 

Oklahoma stayed on the court and celebrated.

“I didn’t think we were out there more than a couple of minutes,” Sooners head coach Jennie Baranczyk said on Sirius-XM Big 12 Radio on Monday afternoon. “We didn’t know they were doing Senior Day, but it is a situation where both teams use the same entrance and exit to the floor.”

The Big 12 Conference told Pokes Report that they suggest that visiting teams use their locker room for celebrating in road venues. 

Oklahoma staying on the floor for some extra celebration did cause boos to rain down from Oklahoma State fans. Mascot Pistol Pete fired off a couple of shots to disrupt some “Boomer Sooner” cheering from the Oklahoma fans. 

You can chalk a lot of that up to Bedlam, but there was a discussion before Baranczyk left the floor as Oklahoma State head coach Jacie Hoyt came over to ask her if the Sooners could leave. 

Hoyt told Oklahoma State radio voice Casey Kendrick on Monday that Oklahoma’s celebration wasn’t hampering the Senior Day, but it was spilling over to the tradition of the team standing and singing the alma mater with fans. 

A lot has been made of the discussion caught in this picture by Bryan Terry of The Oklahoman. Both coaches dismissed it as not being nearly as angry as it might have looked. In fact, an OU assistant coach or staff person that got in front of Baranczyk as if to separate the two coaches made it look that way. That according to both coaches.

“I spoke to Jacie after the game and I don’t think it was a major issue,” Baranczyk said. “I know it was their Senior Day and that is always hard to decide when to do it. You do it before the game and your players have so much emotion they forget their is a game. You do it after and if it’s a loss then it takes something out of it.”

Hoyt told Kendrick it was overblown and that it looked much more angry (the discussion) then it really was.

As always, it would be nice to be a fly on the wall or in this case on the camera lens.