NORMAN, Okla. -- It was 10 years ago this March that the powers who ran the University of Oklahoma athletic department decided it was time to discontinue women's basketball.

Just like that, the sport was gone.

"I remember thinking in terms of amazement," said coach Sherri Coale, who then was a high school coach in Norman. "I was just amazed an institution of this magnitude could do such a crazy thing."

It looks even crazier now, now that the Sooner women are in the Associated Press poll and leading the Big 12 standings. Earlier this season, a program dropped in large part because of lack of support drew more than 10,000 for a game against top-ranked Connecticut.

"I will always believe there is absolutely no substitute for believing that you can win," Coale said. "That's the corner we've turned that's significant. When we play, we expect to win."

During the 1989-90 season, Oklahoma went 6-21 and drew an average of 65 people per home game. Meanwhile, basketball received about one-fourth of the OU women's athletic budget.

"The issue is not cost containment or a desire to remove funds from women's basketball and spend it on men's sports," then-athletic director Donnie Duncan said in announcing he was cutting the sport. "We are redirecting the funds to other women's sports."

The announcement, made during the week of the women's Final Four, was roundly criticized. Eight days later, the university responded to the overwhelming protest by reinstating the program.

Not much changed, however. The Sooners continued to play in front of sparse crowds and continued to have mixed success. They went through two coaches before hiring Coale in '96.

She brought an impressive high school record -- 147-40 and state championships in seven seasons at Norman High. She also brought a personality that won over search committee members who may have been uneasy about hiring a high school coach.

"I knew it was going to take the right fit, the right energy level that would build a foundation that wouldn't just crumble," said associate athletic director Marita Hynes, who led the search for a new coach.

"I wanted somebody that could absolutely come in and twist the key and make things happen. Sherri sold me on that."

Coale took over a team that had finished 12-15 in 1995-96.

"The cupboard was pretty bare, it really was," she said. "There was a lot of negativity surrounding the program. No one was very excited about it. There wasn't a lot of pride in being associated with it. It needed life."

Coale set about changing that, talking up the program to anyone who would listen, including potential recruits. She also had to sell her beliefs to the players she inherited, while holding them to stricter academic standards than the previous staff.

She said she had a plan in place from her first days on the job, when she draped a piece of butcher paper across her desk and spelled out what she intended to do.

"I was real careful not to put timelines on anything," she said. "Everything is so circumstantial when you're working with people."

Oklahoma went 5-22 in Coale's first season, winning one conference game. Things improved a bit the next year -- eight victories overall, four in the league. Last season, Oklahoma went 15-14 and finished .500 in the Big 12.

Heading into this weekend, the Oklahoma women were 18-3, unbeaten in their eight conference games and ranked No. 22. Then, on Saturday, Oklahoma became the first team in the four-year history of the Big 12 to start the season with a perfect 9-0 mark with a 91-69 win over Nebraska.

Coale now has less trouble attracting talented high school players. The 700 season tickets sold this year may not seem like many, but Hynes said it's about 400 more than Oklahoma has ever sold.

"All the ingredients that make a great coach and teacher, she is," Hynes said. "She knows the game. She has student-athlete welfare in the right perspective, academic integrity. She knows how to promote her own sport, and she is passionate about the game."

Passionate, but also realistic.

"Some days it looks pretty good, and as quickly as you think that, you round the corner and wonder what in the world -- where did the plan go?" she said. "You get on top of one hill, you see so many others you have to climb.

"But when I walked down the tunnel at the Connecticut game and saw 10,713 people, I thought, 'We're doing something right.' "