Five Thoughts on a Terrible Foul Call and Oklahoma State’s NCAA Future Following Loss to Kansas State

It’s rare to find a basketball game that truly captivates for 40 minutes. On Friday we got one as both teams stayed within 10 points the entire contest and each quarter was decided by two points or less.

Add in Haleigh Timmer’s game-tying shot with roughly five seconds left and we have the makings of an all-timer.

Sadly for basketball fans everywhere, except Manhattan, Kansas, that’s not quite what we got.

1. Crappy way to end a game

Kansas State looked a bit disorganized when Timmer tied things up. I’m not sure the Wildcats had time to advance the ball to anyone with a hope of knocking down anything short of what might be the shot of the season.

Instead of watching such a shot, or the much more realistic and fun overtime, we all got to watch an 86% free throw shooter end the game at the line. Gross.

Okay now let’s talk about the merits of the call itself. While a Purgesque “let them play refs” would be the most fun way for all basketball games to end, it’s not really fair to the team who played well enough to lead.

Officials whistle Stailee Heard for the reach-in foul with 1.3 seconds to play. It’s an unnecessary play with so little time left. However, in fairness to Oklahoma State’s leader on the court, maybe two or three more seconds on the clock and that play might very well be the difference between Kansas State getting a good look and Heard can’t exactly clock watch in the moment to know that.

I watched the play a few times. Without a better angle it’s hard to tell if Heard gets all ball or not. I feel like it’s probably a foul, but I’d argue it’s nothing egregious. Certainly not worthy of deciding a game over when the foul had, I would argue, no bearing on Kansas State getting a shot off.

It sounds like Oklahoma State coach Jacie Hoyt saw things the same way, well more or less.

“I am incredibly disappointed and embarrassed for the way that game ended,” Hoyt said. “To make that call in a game like that, you don’t do that. It should not have come down to that call. It wasn’t called the entire game until that last play, and I’ve got a locker room full of kids that are really, really hurting right now because they didn’t get to decide the outcome of that game, someone else did. And that is not right.”

Hoyt was more definitive when asked a follow-up.

“I have seen a replay, and there was no foul. If anything, I think it was a travel after we reached in and got all ball. But regardless you don’t blow the whistle in that case. That call wasn’t made the entire game, and you just don’t make that call. So no, I don’t believe it was a foul. I think anyone who watches the replay can see that.”

2. Wooten is the way

Ahead of this one, I wrote that Wooten was Oklahoma State’s not-so-secret weapon and more than capable of delivering this team a Big 12 Tournament Title. I stand by every word after Friday’s game.

The sophomore made an immediate impact and finished with 16 points and five (of OSU’s 10) assists in 31 minutes, fourth most of any Cowgirl in the game. Wooten finished 2-of-2 behind the 3-point line despite entering the game 9-of-37 (24%) on the season.

Whether it was rust from being off this week or the glass floor, the Cowgirls took a bit to settle in on Friday morning. That wasn’t the case for Wooten who came off the bench, as she does every game.

Wooten checked in after the first three minutes, 38 seconds later she hit her first shot to cut Kansas State’s lead to only three points.

It was a significant make considering the Cowgirls were 1-of-6 from the floor at the time.

Oklahoma State looked like a completely different, and much less erratic, team the second she got out there. Wooten, the team’s second-leading scorer, led the Cowgirls in points five times this season.

• I don’t think it’s a coincidence most of those came in the highest leverage moments.
• 26 points against in 3-point win over Miami (netural site)
• 16 points in home loss to Baylor; OSU held sizeable third-quarter lead until Wooten got into foul trouble and subsequently fouled out
• 21 points in 31-point win over Houston; not relevant to the point I’m making
• 25 points in 8-point loss at TCU
• 16 points in 10-point win over Texas Tech

Miami has seemingly fallen off the NCAA bubble, but with an NET ranking of 57, the Hurricanes are still one of Oklahoma State’s better wins.

ESPN projects Texas Tech and Baylor as six seeds with TCU representing the Big 12 as a No. 3 seed in the NCAA Tournament. We’ll get to what things look like for the Cowgirls, but OSU hasn’t played many teams worth mentioning alongside those three.

3. What this means for NCAA Tournament

Oklahoma State is not going to get a good path the next time the Cowgirls take the court. ESPN bracketologist has had the Cowgirls locked into a No. 8 seed for sometime now. That means OSU will face what should be a winnable game against a nine seed, but must then beat a No. 1 seed to advance to the Sweet Sixteen.

Oklahoma State is currently projected to face USC then South Carolina, barring the upset of the year. For context, USC (17-13, 9-9 Big Ten) ended the season on a four-game losing streak.

The Trojans did have quite the schedule considering they went 4-12 against Quad 1 games. Oklahoma State went 1-3 against Q1 competition.

South Carolina (30-2, 15-1 SEC) ranked third in the nation this week and went 10-2 against Q1 opponents. Oklahoma State feels like a team that could beat almost anyone on a neutral court. South Carolina is not just anyone. Neither are their peers on the top-seed line.

Had the Cowgirls won two more maybe even all three games in the Big 12 Tournament, it felt like they could jump up to a No. 6 seed where the competition would cap at someone like TCU who Oklahoma State would have just beaten in the conference tourney.

Hoyt said this game cost the Cowgirls a seed-line. It’s unclear if she meant OSU could have moved up or will now move down. If OSU drops a nine seed, then nothing really changes.

Now, it might benefit Cowgirl fans to root for the committee to hate OSU a little and seed them 10th or even 11th, which would make the initial game tougher on paper, but get the Cowgirls away from teams like South Carolina.

4. Timmer is tough

Haleigh Timmer entered the second half with 1 point, shooting 0-of-2 from the floor and only 50% at the free-throw line. She also had one rebound, one blocked shot and one turnover.

She finished with 13 points to finish third on the team. It was her first time scoring 10+ since Feb. 16 against Utah. In the 10 games leading up to this one Timmer averaged 7.7 points and hit double digits only three times. In the last game, Timmer went 0-of-4 from the floor to finish scoreless against Kansas.

She doesn’t exactly fill up the stat sheet consistently in other ways. It doesn’t mean Timmer hasn’t helped OSU recently, but she sorta morphed into the unsung hero lately as several others stepped into the spotlight.

Yet, when the game was on the line, the Cowgirls repeatedly turned to the senior.

Timmer drained her first made 3-pointer since Feb. 21st with 46 seconds left to play, cutting OSU’s deficit down to two points. Timmer had missed 10 consecutive 3-point attempts at the time including three on Friday.

Timmer then gets the ball on an inbounds play and gets the shot off before the foul earning her two free throws. She drains both to make it a 3-point game with 14 seconds left to play.

Then in the game’s final seconds Timmer steps back and delivers what should have been the highlight of the season when she knocks down a catch-and-shoot 3-pointer.

5. Can Oklahoma State win outside GIA?

Oklahoma State is 5-6 on the road and 2-2 in neutral site games this season, leading some to speculate that the Cowgirls can’t hit the same highs outside of Gallagher-Iba Arena.

Hoyt dismissed that notion last week. Despite Friday’s result I tend to believe she’s right to do so because she acknowledged that the team did need to change things up on the road and did so before travleing to Iowa State last week.

Considering Oklahoma State beat the Cyclones by 11. Iowa State projects as a No. 9 seed according to ESPN, but I’d argue they would be higher if injuries hadn’t derailed the middle portion of the season.

Depending on how seeding works out in the NCAA Tournament, I’m probably firmly in the optimistic camp for the Cowgirls’ chances. With one minute left in the game, I like many, thought oh here we go again.

It felt like Oklahoma State had given away another winnable game, blinking first despite holding a seven-point lead halfway through the third quarter.

Then Timmer came alive and Amari Whiting grabbed her game-high 10th rebound to give Oklahoma State a chance to stay within reach. And Oklahoma State’s defense forced the jumpball call.

That kinda resolve late looked a lot like a team capable of putting real fear in most of the bracket in two weeks. Maybe, just maybe, the Cowgirls needed to learn one more lesson before getting there.

“We lost more than we wanted to this year,” Hoyt said on Tuesday. “We didn’t lose a lot, but we did lose some games that we shouldn’t have lost in our minds. But I’m really grateful for those lessons and takeaways, because I think that those lessons make you bulletproof, if you will. And that’s the whole point, is to be as bulletproof as possible going into March. And I feel like more than ever we are that. I think, you know, last year, maybe our record was better, but we were not as bulletproof going into March, honestly, we just weren’t because we didn’t have to learn those hard lessons.”