Dec. 23—For the second season in a row Oklahoma head coach Jennie Baranczyk has helped lead the Sooners to a 10-1 record heading into conference play.

The Sooners extended their winning streak to seven games with Wednesday’s 95-79 win over the Gators, and are a perfect 21-0 against unranked nonconference opponents under the second year head coach.

The road ahead will only be getting tougher, though, as the Sooners prepare to do battle in a Big 12 conference that had six of 10 teams receiving votes in last week’s AP Poll. The Big 12 went 85-22 during the nonconference and have six teams ranked in the top-50 of the NET Ratings.

The Sooners weren’t even among those six teams, coming in at 57th in last week’s NET Ratings despite ranked in both the AP Poll and the WBCA Coaches Poll (No. 23 and No. 18 respectively).

Oklahoma will be back in action on Dec. 31 at 1 p.m. in a road game against West Virginia.

Here are three things to watch for as the Sooners begin Big 12 play: 1. Leading the league offensively Oklahoma picked right back up where it left off offensively last season as one of the top scoring teams in country.

The Sooners have scored 86.8 points per game this season, which is sixth in the country and first in the Big 12. Secondplace Iowa State is second in the Big 12 and is averaging almost seven less points per game (80.5 points per game) than OU.

Oklahoma’s offensive production can largely be credited to the usual suspects. Madi Williams, Taylor Robertson and Skylar Vann are each back to scoring in the double digits for the Sooners this season.

Robertson has been on a slower pace offensively than in years past, but the redshirt senior has still shown that she can turn it on when she needs to with two games of over 18 points this season. At the rate she’s currently on, Robertson would finish the season with under 100 3-pointers made for just the second time five seasons.

Williams’ role as the team’s primary scorer hasn’t changed, scoring in double figures in 10 of 11 contests.

2. Emptying the bench Baranczyk has made a clear emphasis on utilizing the team’s depth during the early stages of the season.

Of the 14 players that have seen the floor for the Sooners so far this season, 11 are averaging over nine minutes of action per game. The players coming in off the bench have been productive, too, with 36% of the team’s scoring coming from outside of the starting lineup line.

Transfer guard Aubrey Joens is knocking down 3-pointers at a 44% clip with three games in double figures. Reyna Scott also gave the Sooners 15 points in their lone loss to Utah this season.

Even within the starting lineup there’s been improvement.

Nevaeh Tot showed flashes of potential late last season and has been a steady contributor so far this season. Tot has scored in double figures in over half of Oklahoma’s games this season, including an 18-point performance to help the Sooners’ put away BYU in the second half of their first road game of the season.

Ana Llanusa was out for most of last season due to injury and has started all 11 games so far this year. Llanusa gives Oklahoma another six-foot wing player that can guard multiple positions.

The reasoning behind using so many players early in the season is simple. Oklahoma likely won’t keep playing its bench players at the same rate throughout the season, but Baranczyk knows that there will be situations in the future where the team will be looking to its depth to win games and these early season performances can go a long way in building confidence for those players.

3. Finding new ways to win Oklahoma had no answers for Utah down low in its lone loss of the season.

The Utes outrebounded the Sooners 51-31 with 64 of their 124 points coming inside the paint. No other Oklahoma team had ever given up that many points in a single contest before.

The Sooners were playing under difficult — it was the team’s first road trip of the season and on the second night of a back-to-back. But the problems they encountered that night didn’t come out of nowhere.

Oklahoma was also outrebounded and outgunned in the paint in their season-ending loss to Notre Dame in the NCAA Tournament last season.

But that hasn’t been the case in the seven games since.

The Sooners are averaging over 52 rebounds per game since their lone loss this season. They also had 14 more rebounds than Ole Miss and outscored them 36-26 in the paint in a 69-59 win at home.

Oklahoma also hasn’t been able to get nearly as many looks in transition as it did last season as teams have started to adjust to the Sooners’ fastpaced attack. Over 50% of the team’s scoring is coming from shots inside the paint over the last seven games, despite reaching that mark just once in the first four games of the season.