COLUMBUS, Ohio — Watching her Oklahoma players interact at the hotel before their second-round NCAA game against UCLA, coach Sherri Coale had a feeling that her Sooners were ready to play their best game of the season.

With Aaryn Ellenberg scoring 27 points from the perimeter and Joanna McFarland handling things inside with 20 points and 16 rebounds, the Sooners rolled past UCLA 85-72 on Monday night to earn a trip back to their home state for the regional semifinals.

Sharane Campbell added 19 points and Nicole Griffin had 10 for the Sooners, who never trailed after a 15-3 first-half spurt.

Coale, in her 17th season as a head coach, knows that teams that stick together off the court usually do it on the court, too. She could sense that they were committed to playing for each other — for as long as possible.

“They wanted to keep the (common) room so they could watch the (NCAA) games together,” Coale said. “They want to spend time together. We began yesterday talking about having one more week together. We didn’t talk about winning the game, we didn’t talk about going to the Sweet 16. We talked about having one more week together. You could see it just sort of bubbling within them. They were going to make that happen.”

Sixth-seeded Oklahoma (24-10) will face No. 2 seed Tennessee (26-7) — a 68-52 winner over Creighton — in Oklahoma City on Sunday.

“It’s very, very exciting to be going home,” McFarland said. “We’re 40 minutes away so hopefully we’ll have a very big fan base.”

Monday’s game was a rematch of each team’s second game this season, when UCLA came to Norman, Okla., and beat the Sooners 86-80 on Nov. 14. In that game, the Bruins bludgeoned the Sooners with their inside game, outrebounding them 56-34 and turning 24 offensive boards into 23 second-chance points.

But on this night, the Sooners fought on relatively even terms inside and outscored the Bruins 33-6 from 3-point range, hitting 11 of 27 to UCLA’s 2 of 12. Three times in the last 3 minutes, it was McFarland who grabbed offensive rebounds to take time off the clock and add to the lead.

“We just played together and we played with a lot of emotion,” McFarland said. “We refused to lose. It was all or nothing. It was a team effort and it just felt amazing the whole night.”

Atonye Nyingifa had 18 points, Markel Walker 14, Jasmine Dixon 13 and Alyssia Brewer and Thea Lemberger 10 apiece for third-seeded UCLA (26-8), which fell to 11-12 all-time in NCAA tournament play.