Aaliyah Chavez Caught Fire in Overtime to Deliver Oklahoma a Signature Win Over No. 2 South Carolina

NORMAN — It wasn’t Aaliyah Chavez’s night… until it was.

Oklahoma’s freshman phenom started Thursday’s contest against No. 2 South Carolina 4-for-14 from the field, but she caught fire in overtime.

Chavez set the tone with a 3 right in front of OU’s bench, a bucket that proved to be just a warning shot.

She hit three more 3’s, scoring 15 points on 5-of-5 shooting as the Sooners blitzed the Gamecocks in overtime to win 94-82.

Shaking off the slow shooting start came easily to Chavez because her teammates kept pumping her full of confidence throughout the night.

“They kept on telling me to keep on shooting,” Chavez said after the win. “Sahara (Williams) and Raegan (Beers), both of them. … So just knowing that they trust me on taking the shots that I was taking, it just brought my confidence up.”

The jolt was needed for the Sooners.

Oklahoma entered the night on a three-game skid.

Jennie Baranczyk believed her team needed to get back to playing their brand of basketball — a style focused on setting each other up instead of highlighting individual efforts — and it was an improvement that benefitted everyone against South Carolina, Chavez included.

“I saw a team today,” Baranczyk said. “… I thought Aaliyah, especially in that overtime, was like, ‘OK. Let’s go.’ Not, ‘I gotta do anything, I need to make sure I’m doing this.’ She got the ball where it needed to go and then she just played. And the joy she played with and the energy she played with, but she had the same energy for her team the whole game.

“So there was a difference I think in us today that really allowed her to do that and I think everybody on her team knows that’s in her, knows it will come out and has just an incredible belief in the person she is.”

And that belief hasn’t waivered, even in the midst of a tough January stretch.

The Sooners had chances late against both Ole Miss and Kentucky, but OU ultimately dropped both contests.

Chavez herself had a good look late in Lexington, but Oklahoma’s veterans made sure the nation’s top-rated recruit out of high school didn’t dwell on the defeat.

“I kind of thought back to the Kentucky game,” Chavez said, “where I missed the shot and Raegan was the first one next to me that was like, ‘Forget about it. Forget about it.’ … We’ve been talking in practice a lot and we’ve been drawing up last-second plays and you can see that they have all the confidence in me so I kind of just brought their confidence and gave it to myself and I was just ready to play in overtime.”

Chavez paid off that faith with a glimmer of the promise that comes with landing one of the nation’s top players.

She led all scorers with 26 points and was able to add eight assists and four rebounds in 39 minutes of action.

“I was trying to make sure (every play) was the best play for Oklahoma,” Chavez said.