LeeLee Bell's Big-Time Debut Leads Oklahoma to Season-Opening Victory

Welcome to the LeeLee Bell show.

Oklahoma's highly touted freshman forward announced herself forecefully to the college basketball world, scoring 25 points to lead the No. 21 Sooners to a 91-79 win over No. 12 North Carolina on Monday in Paris.

"It was fun to watch," OU coach Jennie Baranczyk said of the opener.

Bell also had eight rebounds and four assists.

"We're going to try a lot of things," Baranczyk said. "Because I don't really know exactly what LeeLee can do, she's a freshman and so we're going to let her play and we're going to let her figure out all the things that she can do."

The Sooners dominated the third quarter, outscoring the Tar Heels 31-14 in the frame to grab control for good.

Oklahoma did it by aggressively attacking the basket, going 10 of 13 from the free-throw line in the third while North Carolina was just 1 of 2.

Freshman Kate Harpring led the Tar Heels with 21 points but was just 9 of 26 from the field.

Here are three quick takeaways from the Sooners' win:

Oklahoma Overcomes Early Aaliyah Chavez Foul Trouble

In the opening seconds of the second quarter, Oklahoma sophomore Aaliyah Chavez was guarding a Tar Heels' ballhandler on the defensive end when she was whistled for her third foul.

Just like that, Chavez's first half was over as the foul was Chavez's third.

The Sooners were trailing 19-18 when Chavez left the game and it figured that North Carolina would have the advantage.

But that wasn't the case.

After the Tar Heels scored five quick points to extend their lead to six, Oklahoma went on a 20-7 run and eventually took a one-point lead into the break, 39-38.

"That's just kind of team basketball," Sahara Williams said. "Aaliyah's a great player and foul trouble early and she's still young so still learning and figuring everything out but with the depth that we have, the reason Oklahoma basketball is special is whoever else is coming off the bench is just as good."

Bell scored nine of her points and had a pair of assists in the second.

"I knew it was my time to step up," Bell said. "... I knew that I was capable of that."

Chavez ultimately finished with 14 points on 4-of-12 shooting (1 of 5 on 3-pointers).

"What was really neat from a coaches' perspective is to watch them both settle into the game," Baranczyk said. "... It wasn't that everyone had to have a spectacular game today, everybody just tried to do something to get a little bit better."

Sahara Williams Comes up big in Third

While Bell made her debut a memoriable one, the most experienced player on Oklahoma's roster did as well.

Sahara Williams scored 13 of her 22 points during the third, hitting a pair of 3-pointers.

North Carolina was just 6 of 20 from the field and 1 of 8 from beyond the arc in the third.

Sooners Struggle in the Fourth

Oklahoma led by 18 going into the final 10 munutes and seemingly had the game well in hand.

But a flurry of missed shots early in the shot clock helped North Carolina claw back into the game and cut the deficit to just 10 with a little more than a minute remaining.

Baranczyk wasn't thrilled with the final quarter, where the Sooners scored 21 points but was just 3 of 10 from beyond the arc.

"Not great," Baranczy said. "I mean lots of film work. We have to learn. Honestly with a young team you try to prepare for so many things. You knew that they would trap. You knew knew that they had three-quarter court traps. You knew that they had elite offensive players. You knew they had size, length. You knew that they could run in transition. You knew all these different things. You didn't know that you were going to be up and have to manage. So we have not practiced that.

"So we're going to have to learn how to do that. We're going to have to learn how to have a lot better shot selection when you're up. We were still playing liuke it was (close). We were playing, we were having fun, and the shots weren't going in or we were passing it to the wrong team and we were getting a little risky."

The Tar Heels missed four consecutive shots and Chavez's 3-pointer with 20 seconds left put the exclamation mark on the win.

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