SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE WOMEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 5, 2026

Jennie Baranczyk

Raegan Beers

Aaliyah Chavez

Bon Secours Wellness Arena

Oklahoma Sooners

Postgame Press Conference

Oklahoma 82, Florida 64

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Oklahoma Head Coach Jennie Baranczyk and student-athletes Aaliyah Chavez and Raegan Beers. Raegan Beers scored her 2,000th career point in this game. She's the third player in Oklahoma history with 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds, and the only active Division I player with 2,000 points and 1,000 rebounds. With that, we will take questions.

Raegan, your thoughts on accomplishing that milestone in today's game?

RAEGAN BEERS: It's really, really cool. It's sometimes seen as an individual achievement. But I was talking on the radio, I'm post, so I don't necessarily create a lot of my own shots. So all of my shots come from great pass from my guards.

While that is an individual achievement, I also see that as a team achievement, and I'm so thankful for the group that I got to achieve that with, and excited for our run that we're going to keep going on.

Q. Can you talk about that third quarter, the 27-7 that really changed the game from the first half?

REAGAN BEERS: 100%. We know we needed to come out and play with energy. Obviously we were still in that first half. We can't come out like that. We have to adjust. That's a great team.

We knew we had already played them and that's something that they were going to do. We had to come out in the third quarter knowing we had to put the foot on the gas, and I feel like we did a great job of that.

AALIYAH CHAVEZ: We definitely came out and played hard after halftime. Our energy was great. We were passing ahead. We were playing Oklahoma basketball for sure.

Q. Aaliyah, it's a common refrain this time of year that freshmen aren't freshmen anymore, but it's postseason basketball. I'm just curious if you had any advice or kind of words of wisdom from teammates in the locker room heading into what is now really truly March?

AALIYAH CHAVEZ: Everyone has been telling me just to be myself. Don't try to go prove myself to anybody. Just go out and play Oklahoma basketball. I know my teammates trust me to put us in the best position, and that's what I'm going to go do.

Q. Aaliyah, point guard position, so critical. Especially in the postseason. Now the tournament time, do you feel like the pressure is ratcheted up? What was going through your mind? Were you nervous at all? What is your mindset going forward?

AALIYAH CHAVEZ: I'm very excited. I mean, obviously this is my first SEC tournament, but I know that Coach Jennie and all our coaching staff has put me in the best position for this moment, and I was just really excited to come play.

Q. Raegan, what's been the difference? You've gotten momentum going with some wins here down the stretch at the best time of year. What's been the difference for you guys?

REAGAN BEERS: When we play team defense, we're really good, and that makes our offense a lot easier. The more we can do that, that makes a huge difference for our team on both ends of the court.

The more we continue to do that, the better we're going to be as a team, and the more fun we are to watch. Let's be honest, it's really fun when we play Oklahoma basketball. So we need to continue to do that as we have this momentum going into the rest of this tournament and then obviously into March.

THE MODERATOR: Ladies, thank you. Questions for Coach.

Q. That was such a diplomatic and also lovely answer from Raegan about her own milestone. How does that speak to the culture of Oklahoma basketball?

JENNIE BARANCZYK: Yeah, that's Raegan. I'm up here smiling because they just answered both of those questions so authentically them. Sometimes you don't get to see that with Raegan, right, because you see her as this fierce player on the floor, and she's posting up, and she's strong. You don't always get to see her heart, but her heart is a pretty amazing heart.

She's obviously very articulate as well, but she's almost to a fault too team-first, but that's Oklahoma, and that's what we want to be able to do. You can see that we've grown a lot because of that, and she's just been just such an incredible leader, especially for our young players.

Q. Coach, you had a lot of testing games down the stretch, and today you had a testing second half. What's really working for you to end up piling these wins on top of each other?

JENNIE BARANCZYK: You know, I've said this multiple times, but we're just a team that's addicted to growing. We just want to get better, and this is a first for half of our team. We're still really young. This is their first SEC tournament, and you could see that in the first half.

You could see that we came out excited, and then all of a sudden it was, like, we're all panicking, and we're, you know -- we just needed to steady up.

Obviously we have really good leadership, but we're still young, and you can watch our young players grow. You can watch them make -- maybe we didn't necessarily complete plays the first part of January, but we did in February, and you can see that we've just continued to grow and get better and have fun playing.

We're 100% at our best when we have fun. We still want to play tough. We still want to play hard, but we're really good when we set each other up and we play together on both ends.

You can see that that's really where their focus is. It's less about a scoreboard.

Q. Coach, quick turnaround. What really can you do to plan for LSU in the next 24 hours?

JENNIE BARANCZYK: Pray a lot. No, I mean, they're so good. They're so talented. And we obviously did not play well the first time, and they are just very, very good, and they have so many weapons.

So we're going to take some lessons from this game. That's just what we do. We're going to continue to get better, and we have to give everything that we have tomorrow. If we don't make it a team and we don't rebound a ball, we've got no shot.

So we've got to be able to get better offensively. We've got to move the ball better, and defensively we better guard and not put them on the free-throw line so much, because we did that a little too much today.

Q. Having a freshman point guard can be difficult this time of year. When it comes to Aaliyah, what have you seen out of her and her addiction to success, if she has it, to get you to this point and hopefully take you deeper into March?

JENNIE BARANCZYK: I've seen someone that really wants to grow and be great for her team, and that's really it. I think sometimes there's this, you know, perception that's not real with her, and she is a worker, and she is a great teammate, and she is somebody that wants the people around her to be really, really good, and she wants to be good.

There's times where she's trying to find that balance, but she's just continued to get better. I'm really excited to continue to watch her, because it's just been a slow, steady go.

I sometimes do forget she's a freshman. She's 19 and trying to navigate a lot of things. So I love -- you know, you can see her mistakes or trying to do the right things. It's trying to get the ball in to Raegan and trying to put other people in good positions. Then there are sometimes where she might just have to make a play, and she's not made plays, and she's made plays.

So it's pretty impressive to be able to see the experience. Experience is our best teacher. You can completely tell the experiences that she's had this season.

I don't underestimate her in any game, in any situation. Just like she said, she's not out here to prove herself or to prove anything. She wants to play Oklahoma basketball, and that's actually 100% of who she is and why I absolutely love coaching her and why her team absolutely loves playing with her.