Newly minted Oklahoma women's basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk makes pair of coaching hires
Oklahoma has announced a pair of hires to help fill out new women’s basketball coach Jennie Baranczyk’s staff.
Norman High School head coach Michael Neal and Arkansas Razorbacks assistant Chantel Osahor will be joining Baranczyk on the sidelines this season, per an announcement by the program on Twitter.
Neal, fresh off leading the Tigers to back-to-back state championships at Norman High, leaves behind a roster he helped develop which is loaded with Division 1 talent. Rising seniors Mikayla Parks and Myka Perry are both currently committed to Power 5 schools, Kansas State and Florida respectively, while point guard Kelbie Washington will already be joining the Sooners in 2021.
Former Washington Huskies standout Osahor is also headed to Norman after stops at Arkansas as an assistant coach and Drake where she served as a graduate assistant under Baranczyk.
After helping Baranczyk’s Bulldogs to back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances, Osahor joined Mike Neighbors, her college coach at Washington, in Fayetteville in 2019.
During her days on the court, Osahor was named an All-American in 2017 before she was taken by the Chicago Sky with the No. 21-overall pick in the 2017 WNBA Draft.
Baranczyk’s first two assistant coaching hires fulfill her goals of having a national recruiting footprint on staff, while also keeping the best in-state, and perhaps even just the best intra-city, talent home for the Sooners.