Oklahoma’s Raegan Beers begins her final March push as the Sooners host Idaho

Sport

Oklahoma’s Raegan Beers begins her final March push as the Sooners host Idaho

2026-03-20 07:33 Last Updated At：07:50

Oklahoma’s Raegan Beers has one last chance to reach the Final Four.

The 6-foot-4 senior has been one of the nation’s best post players the past three years, a third-team AP All-American as a sophomore and an All-SEC first-team selection as a junior and senior. She reached the Elite Eight as a sophomore at Oregon State, and the Sweet 16 last season as a junior at Oklahoma.

This season, she averages 15.7 points on 61.5% shooting and grabs 10.4 rebounds per game. She heads into this tournament having to depend on young players such as freshman guard Aaliyah Chavez to help her make the most of her final run. Fourth-seeded Oklahoma (24-7) will open against No. 13 seed Idaho (29-5) on Friday in Norman, Okla.

“Obviously, March Madness is the time that you all work for all season,” Beers said. “All the prep in the offseason, in the summertime, all those extra workouts — this is what it has led to. To do it with this group is really special.”

It’s not the most convenient opening matchup — the Sooners play at 9 p.m. local time. Beers will start her last push against an Idaho program that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2016 and has never won a March Madness game.

Neither the time nor the opponent's history matters to Beers.

“A basketball game is a basketball game,” she said. “I feel like because it’s March, we’re going to be ready regardless of what time it’s at because we’re going to be so excited."

Idaho won the Big Sky Tournament and is on an 18-game win streak, and the Vandals plan for it to continue. Arthur Moreira, the Big Sky Conference Coach of the Year, said he doesn’t want his team to play timid.

“You have to go at them,” he said. “I think games like this, that’s what you have to do. You can’t respect too much who’s across from you. I have a lot of respect for Jen (Baranczyk) and her program, but in those 40 minutes that we’re going to play against each other, we got to play our game, and that’s what brought us here so far.”

Two very different styles will clash when No. 5 seed Michigan State and No. 12 seed Colorado State meet on Friday.

Colorado State (27-7) allows just 54.9 points per game, seventh-lowest in the nation, and holds opponents to 35% shooting — also seventh nationally. The Rams have held 24 of their 34 opponents to 60 or fewer points.

Michigan State (22-8) averages 83.9 points per game, 10th-best nationally. The Spartans have five players who average double figures, led by Grace VanSlooten. The 6-3 center averages 15 points and 6.6 rebounds. Kennedy Blair adds 14.4 points and 7.3 rebounds per game. The Spartans shoot 48.1% from the field.

“We have to have a level of patience,” Michigan State coach Robyn Fralick said. “One of the phrases we’ve been using is ‘aggressive patience.’ We still have to play the way we love to play, but we also have to understand there’s a discipline and a patience to the possessions.”

Colorado State will be without star guard Lexus Bargesser in the tournament.

She left the Mountain West semifinal against UNLV in the second quarter with a season-ending knee injury. The senior guard averaged 15.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.3 steals per game.

The Rams still beat UNLV, then defeated Air Force in the tournament final to advance to the NCAA Tournament.

“It’s been neat to see the kids kind of evolve into, although a short period, just different roles,” Colorado State coach Ryun Williams said. “And everybody is going to be asked to do something a little different either offensively or defensively in this tournament because of how valuable she was for us.”

Fralick still respects what the Rams can do.

“Colorado State is a really good team,” she said. “I mean, 27 wins is a lot of wins over the course of a season. What stands out about them is their patience, their discipline. You know, they do a really good job of executing on both sides of the ball.”

AP March Madness bracket: https://apnews.com/hub/ncaa-womens-bracket and coverage: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness

BTS returns with comeback concert in Seoul after four-year hiatus

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — After a four-year break, K-pop supergroup BTS returns Saturday with a massive, free comeback concert in Seoul, where thousands of police are locking down a central boulevard for the Netflix-exclusive spectacle expected to draw tens of thousands of fans.

The performance at Gwanghwamun Square launches a monthslong global tour spanning dozens of shows across the United States, Europe and Asia.

All seven members of the band — RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V and Jung Kook — recently completed South Korea’s mandatory military service, and hope to reclaim their status as one of the world's biggest pop acts.

The hourlong concert comes a day after the group released its fifth album, “ARIRANG,” which had already logged several million preorder sales since January.

The band’s management company, HYBE, said RM injured his ankle during a rehearsal Thursday but was expected to perform with some limitations.

Officials expect the BTS concert to draw more than 200,000 people to the Gwanghwamun area, including 22,000 fans who secured free seats in the designated viewing zone and others planning to watch on screens nearby. It will be streamed live on Netflix.

“It will be amazing because it’s been so long that BTS (was) not with us,” said Dallila Di Tullio, a 32-year old fan from Italy, who called the concert a once-in-a-century event. Marta Corona, a 25-year-old Polish fan, said she would be seeing BTS in person for the first time since a 2019 performance in London. “It’s been a while — I’m very excited,” she said.

BTS debuted in 2013 and has a legion of global supporters who call themselves the “Army.” It became the first K-pop act to top Billboard’s Hot 100 chart in 2020 with their first all-English song “Dynamite.”

Jung Dukhyun, a pop culture commentator, said that the impact of the BTS returning as a full-group after years of pause would be tremendous at a time when global fandom for K-pop has grown much stronger, as shown by the success of Netflix’s animated sensation, “KPop Demon Hunters.”

Police and city officials are imposing stringent crowd-control measures, closing nearby streets, roads and museums, halting the area’s subway and bus services, and sealing off dozens of surrounding buildings, in what amounts to a full-day shutdown of the district.

Cars will be barred from the main road between Gwanghwamun and Seoul City Hall for more than 30 hours through Sunday morning. The government has stepped up anti-terror monitoring, citing global tensions and large crowds of international fans, while police deployed surveillance vehicles and jamming equipment to block unauthorized drones. The restrictions have forced nearby shops to close and deliveries to pause.

While South Korean officials have taken crowd safety more seriously since a deadly 2022 Halloween surge that killed nearly 160 people, critics say the controls are excessive and undercut the symbolism of performing in Gwanghwamun, seen as Seoul’s spiritual heart and most prominent gathering space.

Hundreds of thousands have gathered in Gwanghwamun in recent years to mourn, protest and celebrate as the country weathered tragedy and political upheaval. The BTS concert comes about a year after waves of demonstrators filled the area, calling for the ouster of then-President Yoon Suk Yeol over his brief imposition of martial law in December 2024. Those monthslong rallies were marked by a festive atmosphere and a striking blend of politics and pop culture, with protesters singing and waving colorful K-pop light sticks, and ended without major safety accidents.

The new BTS album, “ARIRANG,” draws on a centuries-old folk song regarded as an unofficial anthem in both North and South Korea while Gwanghwamun and nearby Gyeongbok Palace form a sweeping historic backdrop to Saturday’s show.

South Korean officials are counting on the event to promote the country’s culture and growing soft power. In a statement Wednesday, President Lee Jae Myung said the BTS performance would provide “a special moment that people around the world will remember for long.”

“While one pillar of the album is defined by BTS’ identity, the other is shaped by the emotions they feel in the present, specifically universal sentiments such as joy, pleasure, and profound love,” HYBE said in response to questions from The Associated Press.

The 14-track record, with lead single “SWIM,” was recorded in Los Angeles as the group reconvened after years apart.

The group's comeback follows a nearly four-year hiatus driven by South Korea’s mandatory military service, which requires most able-bodied men to serve 18 to 21 months under a conscription system aimed at deterring aggression from North Korea. BTS members began serving in 2022, with Suga the last to complete his service in June 2025.

Despite their yearslong break, experts say BTS’s outlook remains strong, backed by its massive fandom and the continuous global rise of K-pop. South Korea’s SK Securities said Wednesday the group’s “ARIRANG” world tour is likely to become the biggest K-pop tour ever by scale and revenue, with 82 shows planned globally in stadiums of around 50,000 seats.

“They had a fairly long hiatus but still have a historically powerful fandom. As they come back, they’ll likely immediately enjoy a warm welcome and intense fever around the world,” said Ha Jae-keun, a cultural critic. “I think they’ll likely have a second heyday.”

__ AP video journalists Yong Jun Chang and Yong-ho Kim contributed.