Cowgirl Hoops: Utah Road Trip Could Do Wonders for OSU’s Big 12 Hunt, National Seeding

The Cowgirls entered Year 3 of the Jacie Hoyt era hungry just to return to the NCAA Tournament, and now they’ve positioned themselves to have bigger aspirations.

Oklahoma State is 20-4, in the running for a Big 12 title and is on pace for the best season in school history. The 1990-91 Cowgirls went 27-6 (.818) under Dick Halterman, won the Big Eight — OSU’s only regular season conference title — and made one of OSU’s three Sweet 16 runs. The current Cowgirls are 20-4 (.833) with five games remaining, are one game out of the Big 12 lead and currently tabbed as a 7 seed, and rising, in ESPN’s latest Bracketology.

There’s a lot to like about the Cowgirls’ prospects to sneak into a Big 12 regular season title and to continue to climb in the NCAA seeding over the last two weeks of the regular season. But first is a two-game stretch in Utah with a classic trap-game scenario to navigate.

The Cowgirls play at BYU on Saturday and then at Utah on Tuesday before returning home for two games and finishing out their regular season with a trip to Kansas. Those last three teams are a combined 17-22 in league play. But first, BYU.

It’s no secret that the Cougars have struggled this season. They’re just 3-10 in conference and just 2-4 at home, not exactly daunting for an OSU squad that’s won six of seven and is 4-2 in Big 12 road games. There are potential dangers in Provo, like freshman phenom Delaney Gibb, a candidate to try and go blow-for-blow with OSU star Stailee Heard. Gibb is fresh off her seventh Big 12 Freshman of the Week award, making her only the sixth player in league history to do so. That’s Brittney Griner territory.

But, on paper, the real danger lies just beyond BYU, and that on-paper knowledge provides its own peril.

Three days after they face the Cougars, and without a grounding trip back home, the Cowgirls will head straight to Salt Lake City to face Utah, also 10-3 in Big 12 play. A win there would give them some separation from the Utes in the conference title chase and set them up nicely to take advantage should the teams ahead of them stumble. But they can’t look that far ahead.

“We’re just taking it one game at a time,” said Hoyt following Saturday’s win over Arizona. “We’ve learned the hard way what can happen when we look ahead.”

Hoyt might be referring to OSU’s losses to a couple of teams in the bottom third of the league. They dropped an early conference game to now 4-9 Kansas at home and also fell at current last-placed Houston. Or she could be talking about the loss to Richmond back in November. Their only other blemish was at a ranked Mountaineers squad, but that did precede a visit from No. 12 Kansas State.

But the Cowgirls have just five games left and are one game out of the league’s top spot which is occupied by the trio of Kansas State, TCU and Baylor. OSU is 3-0 against those teams. If they come back from the Utah trip with two wins, the Cowgirls will not only at least retain that hold on their spot, they’ll be in position to win any head-to-head tiebreakers. OSU is undefeated against the rest of the top 10 teams in the league save West Virginia, but the Mountaineers are a full game behind them and they split the two meetings.

And that top three will have some shakeup by the end of the season because Baylor plays at Kansas State on Feb. 24, and TCU plays at Baylor on March 2.

But that’s just the Big 12. Hoyt and her Cowgirls have higher aspirations, remember?

After that uncharacteristic 17-point loss at West Virginia on Feb. 1, the Cowgirls have held court at home, rattling off that 30-point win over No. 12 Kansas State and Saturday’s 19-point thumping of Arizona. Following that most recent win, Hoyt talked about her team’s final push and the dangers of looking ahead.

“I think going into the year, we were really hungry to get to the Tournament,” said Hoyt. “We still have a lot of business to take care of but now that we’ve positioned ourself where we have, it’s really about seedings and just understanding how important every single game is and getting better every single game because we can still get so much better as a team.”

Two years ago, in Hoyt’s first year at the helm, OSU made it into the field in as an 8 seed, falling to Miami by one point in the first round. They finished fourth in the Big 12, which, thanks to that three-way tie at 1, is exactly where they would finish if the season ended today.

“We’re really just focused on one game at a time and understanding that while March looks promising at this point, we want to play as long as possible and those seedings matter,” Hoyt said. “So that’s really what we’re focused on right now.”

The Cowgirls can’t afford to look ahead, but we can. If they can weather BYU and steal one at Utah, they’ll be still very much in the conference hunt and their NCAA resume will only look better. But they’ll also prove that they’re the type of team that can navigate a potential trap game. That’s the type of team that can isn’t just glad to be invited to the Tournament. That’s the type of team that expects to show up and do some damage.

That next big test comes Saturday. The Cowgirls and Cougars tip off at 4 p.m. CST Saturday in Provo.