Opinion: In hiring Drake's Jennie Baranczyk, Oklahoma women's basketball gets a proven coach

The name didn’t ring any bells.

Jennie Baranczyk.

Perhaps you’re different. Maybe you saw the news Saturday afternoon about who Oklahoma had hired as its new women’s basketball coach and thought, “Oh, yeah, Jennie Baranczyk! The coach from Drake!”

But had the school’s release about the hiring failed to tell me that information, I’d have been stumped. I had never even heard Baranczyk’s name before. Didn’t know the first thing about her.

Thing is, the women’s college basketball world thought the same thing the last time the Sooners named a new coach.

Sherri Coale, who retired last month, was largely unknown 25 years ago when Oklahoma hired her from Norman High School. Sure, folks around these parts knew her because of the success her Tiger teams had enjoyed, but collegiately, few had ever even heard her name.

Coale ended up taking the Sooners to three Final Fours and becoming a Women's Basketball Hall of Famer.

She worked out smashingly.

Baranczyk could, too.

Truth be told, she’s way more proven than Coale was.

Baranczyk (pronounced bah-RAHN-check) has spent the past nine seasons as the head coach at Drake. Her teams went to the NCAA Tournament three times and won at least 20 games six times.

The Bulldogs were on the cusp of another NCAA appearance this season, but before the Missouri Valley Conference Tournament final, Baranczyk tested positive for COVID. The resulting contact tracing knocked out four players and two assistants. With only eight players, one acting head coach and one assistant, Drake still only lost to Bradley, 78-70.

Drake, frankly, has become the monolith in the Missouri Valley. It has dominated the league for the better part of a decade, including twice having perfect regular-season records in conference play. Those seasons earned Baranczyk conference coach of the year honors.

Going from The Valley to the Big 12 will be a big step up, of course. Drake’s headiest competition in the Missouri Valley is Missouri State, Illinois State and Northern Iowa. Being in the Big 12, Baranczyk will have to contend with the likes of Baylor, Texas, and West Virginia.

But Baranczyk isn’t a stranger to the Big 12. After playing at Iowa from 2000-04, she began her coaching career as an assistant at Kansas State in 2005. Then after a stint at Marquette, she returned to the Big 12 in 2010 as an assistant at Colorado, then a conference member.

That led to her first head coaching job at Drake.

She’s been there ever since.

BARANCZYK: 5 things to know about Oklahoma's new women's basketball coach

"It's a tougher decision,” Baranczyk said of leaving Drake in a telephone interview Saturday with The Des Moines Register, “but it's one where, it's Oklahoma and it's a pretty awesome opportunity.

"I'm thrilled about it, too."

Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, who according to program insiders had lots of interest from candidates with head coaching experience, sounded equally excited about Baranczyk.

"This is a truly exciting day for our university and athletics department as we welcome Jennie Baranczyk as our new head women's basketball coach," Castigione said in a statement.

"Her track record of overseeing creative and effective offenses and producing high win totals, conference championships and postseason appearances during her time at Drake certainly appealed to our search committee as it evaluated the very competitive candidate pool.”

The way Baranczyk’s teams scored at Drake is definitely enticing. This past season, the Bulldogs led the nation averaging 20.4 assists per game. They also ranked sixth nationally in field goal percentage at 48.1.

And they didn’t just score a bunch of points against Mo Valley foes.

In nonconference play, Drake walloped Minnesota 99-66 and lost a nail biter to Iowa 103-97. Of course, if you want to balance that out, Drake also faced Texas and Iowa State and lost both games by double digits, 101-80 vs. the Longhorns and 85-67 vs. the Cyclones.

At Oklahoma, Baranczyk will be expected to have better results than that against those Big 12 teams.

Will the Sooners?

Time will tell, but around women’s college basketball, it has been believed for several years that it was only a matter of time before Baranczyk left Drake. She interviewed for Power 5 jobs in recent years, including North Carolina in 2019. She popped up as a possible candidate at Duke last year and Washington this year.

Being a native of the Des Moines area — she played at Dowling Catholic High School, which is less than 10 minutes from Drake’s campus — she wasn’t in a rush to leave.

But with her success, it seemed likely a school would eventually make her an offer she couldn’t turn down.

Oklahoma did.

Jennie Baranczyk may not be a name lots of Sooners recognize, but her track record suggests plenty of crimson-and-cream loyalists will like her the more they get to know her.

Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK; follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok.

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma hires Drake's Jennie Baranczyk as women's basketball coach