Cowgirl Basketball: OSU Suffers First Big 12 Loss, Falling 75-66 to Kansas

PHOTOS

STILLWATER — The Cowgirls magical start to the season hit a bit of a road bump Saturday afternoon thanks to a cold shooting night.

Oklahoma State fell to Kansas 75-66, marking the Cowgirls’ first loss since November. OSU falls to 12-2 on the season and 2-1 in Big 12 play after shooting 36% from the field and 20% from 3 against the Jayhawks. Coming into Saturday’s game, OSU shot 50% and 40% from deep.

“Welcome to the Big 12,” OSU coach Jacie Hoyt said. “Every game is going to test you. It doesn’t matter what happened the game before, you’ve gotta find a way to show up and be at your best the next game. Today we were far from that. I thought Kansas did a good job defensively of taking us out of some things. Then I thought we had too much today that was just self-inflicted. We had turnovers that were timely and costly, couldn’t buy a bucket. In general, I think this just has to be a learning experience for our team that when you’re shooting as poorly as we did today, and it’s hard to beat anyone shooting as poor as we did, but you just gotta find other ways to impact the game.”

Give credit to the Jayhawks. They took over control of the game across about a six-minute stretch at the end of the third quarter and the start of the fourth, where KU outscored OSU 14-2. That stretch ended with the Jayhawks up seven, and the Cowgirls’ deficit hovered around that from then on. That stretch was preceded by OSU’s 6-foot-6 center Tenin Magassa picking up her third foul before her reaction to said foul drew a technical. She came back in at the end of that run.

It was particularly an off night for the Cowgirls’ two leading scorers. Micah Gray and Anna Gret Asi combined for seven points against the Jayhawks, going 1-for-17 from the field and 1-for-14 from 3-point range. That certainly won’t happen every night. Those two came in averaging 16.8 and 13.8 points a game, respectively, with both shooting better than 36% from 3.

“When you’re a shooter and you don’t make a shot, you know, and they know,” Hoyt said. “I know that they’re the types of players who are gonna do what they need to do to fix it. They gotta get their butts in the gym and just get that rhythm back.”

Stailee Heard picked up the slack. She’s probably bad at something, but that something likely doesn’t involve a basketball. Heard can score at the rim, in the midrange and from deep all while being a menace on the glass and having the ability to make plays for her teammates. She scored 24 points on 8-for-15 shooting Saturday, going 3-for-4 from deep while also bringing down 11 boards. That’s the fifth double-double of Heard’s sophomore season after she had three as a freshman.

“The thing with Stailee is it’s gonna look different on any given day because she’s just a competitor,” Hoyt said. “You heard her say it: she hates losing. That’s one thing we both have in common: we hate losing more than we love winning. When you have that about you, you’ll do anything to not lose. That’s why Stailee’s so versatile because sometimes we might need her to rebound. Sometimes we need her to defend. Sometimes we need her to score. She’s just willing to do whatever it takes, and I love that about her. She’s continuing to figure it out and just get better every day. Her future is so bright here because she’s just willing to do whatever it takes.”

A Kansas native, freshman Jadyn Wooten had one of the better performances of her young career. Wooten scored 19 points on nine shots while tallying a quartet of assists.

Turnovers were an issue for both squads, as they combined for 30. The Jayhawks, though, had more success turning their takeaways into points, scoring 27 points off turnovers to OSU’s 15.

There were 3,390 in attendance Saturday, and when Hoyt took to the mic after the game, she called it the best crowd they’ve had this season. OSU will be in Cincinnati on Wednesday for a 5:30 p.m. tip, but the OSU faithful can attempt to best that crowd in a week, when OSU hosts West Virginia at 2 p.m. Jan. 11.

“Our fans were awesome today,” Hoyt said. “I thought this was our best crowd of the season. Just wanna thank them for showing up. We just appreciate that support so much, and I hate it that we couldn’t give them more to cheer about.”