Skip to main content
Oklahoma
Join Now

OU leaning on Aaliyah Chavez in final stretch of regular season

headshotby: George Stoia02/21/26GeorgeStoia

Jennie Baranczyk never thinks Aaliyah Chavez will miss.

The fifth-year head coach has a lot of faith in her true freshman point guard. Chavez has the green light to shoot it whenever she sees fit. And no matter how many times she’s missed in previous attempts. That was evident on Thursday night against No. 24 Georgia, as Chavez tallied 27 points on 9 of 17 shooting — one of her best shooting performances over the past month.

Chavez’s big night was the main reason why the 11th-ranked Sooners won their third game in a row.

“Every shot that she shoots, I think is going in, and she knows that,” Baranczyk said. “What’s really special about her is she works on it — she gets in the gym, works on her game, and watches a lot of film. She watches film with me and on her own. She’s really studying a lot of things, and I think she’s really trying to step up on the mental side of it too. She has a really cool demeanor — it’s real, it’s authentic. She loves playing. The season can get long — it’s a lot — and she’s playing a lot of minutes for us, so her path is really going up.”

Heading into Thursday’s contest, Chavez had been struggling. In the four games before the Georgia game, Chavez was 4 of 28 from 3 and shooting just 29.3% from the field.

But that hasn’t stopped Chavez from helping her team win some big games in their last three contests. Against Florida, she was 10-of-10 from the free throw line, making several clutch free throws to seal the game. Against Alabama, she scored nine of her 15 points in the final quarter to beat the Crimson Tide. And on Thursday, she hit several big shots down the stretch and answered every time Georgia went on a run.

If OU is going to make a run in the NCAA Tournament again this year, Chavez will likely have to lead the way. And her coach is confident her freshman will be ready for the moment.

“I don’t worry about whether or not it goes in. It’s more about the approach to the shot, and that’s what we’ve talked about,” Baranczyk said. “There are times she might rush it, or times she’s too open and thinks too much about it. And she’s just learning. But make no mistake: there’s never a question in my mind that it’s not going in. I think every shot she shoots is going in.”

You may also like