Five Thoughts on Cowgirls’ 2026 Season and the Future Ahead

STILLWATER — Oklahoma State couldn’t quite hang with the Bruins on Monday night, but they came closer than most.

UCLA entered Monday night’s game fourth in the nation in scoring margin, averagely beating their opponents by 28.9 points. Of course, what else can be expected from a team with a 32-1 record riding a 26-game winning streak?

Oklahoma State lost by 19 after trailing by as little as 14 early in the fourth. In other words, Oklahoma State didn’t let the Bruins relax until the final minutes.

Only nine teams played UCLA closer, and that’s counting Texas, which beat UCLA back in November.

Now, Oklahoma State says goodbye to only two players who played 40 minutes this season, starters Micah Gray and Haleigh Timmer.

Gray broke her own record to finish as the program’s single-season 3-point leader (93 makes) and finished as the lead scorer both overall and on a per-game average (13.6). Timmer averaged 11.5 points and was second in overall minutes this season behind only Stailee Heard.

Both will be missed next season, but it still feels like Oklahoma State is poised to capitalize following the program’s first NCAA Tournament win under Jacie Hoyt.

Here’s five thoughts on Oklahoma State’s season and the future ahead following including Monday night’s finale against UCLA.

Did the Cowgirls underperform?

This group felt far more dangerous than last year’s team, largely because the Cowgirls were much less reliant on heroics from Heard. Five Cowgirls averaged 10-plus points this season, marking a first in the history of the program, and a sixth finished less than half a point shy of joining them.

When OSU needed a must-get bucket or a spark in general, Hoyt had a few different options to turn to, especially over the last month of the season.

Yet this group ended up seeded eighth, an especially tough place to land given the second-round matchup with No. 1 seeds. Oklahoma State lost to UCLA by 19 points on Monday night. That might sound bad, but the other No. 1 seeds beat their opponents by 40-plus points.

For a few moments in the second half, it seemed like Oklahoma State could truly add some drama back into what looked like a blowout for most of the evening.

Elsewhere in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, a six seed beat a three seed to advance (Notre Dame over Ohio State by 10) while No. 6-seeded Washington fell to TCU by three in overtime and No. 6-seeded Alabama lost to Louisville by one point.

These Cowgirls didn’t deserve a sixth seed this year, but it’s not impossible to imagine them playing their way into that conversation with two small changes.

Oklahoma State held a 19-point lead on Baylor (coincidentally, the only six-seed that failed to be competitive in the second round) with 1:34 left in the third. Oklahoma State lost by nine, prompting Hoyt to apologize to GIA and describe it as a game her team “gave away” due to “stupid fouls.”

Then Oklahoma State overcame a five-point deficit in the final 17 seconds of the Big 12 quarterfinals only to see it all undone by a controversial foul call with less than two seconds remaining.

Those two wins alone put the team at 25 overall with an additional Quad 1 win and a chance for more against TCU and West Virginia. At least one of those felt winnable given the Cowgirls held a brief lead with seven minutes to play in Fort Worth this season.

While it’s impossible to know what an additional two or three wins would have meant for Oklahoma State’s seeding and subsequent performance, it does seem fair to believe this team was respectfully capable of, and close to, so much more.

Expecting Even more in 2027

Picking up where the last thought ended, Oklahoma State seems like a team well-positioned to make a Sweet Sixteen, the program’s fourth-ever, next year.

Hoyt finished her first four years 0.6% short of the fourth-best winning percentage in any four-year stretch in the history of Cowgirl basketball. For context, the Cowgirls needed to win only one more game to claim that fourth-place spot over the 2006-10 teams who won 65.7% to finish 88-46.

As mentioned, this team loses two starters, but sophomore Jadyn Wooten cashed in on every bit of the potential (and then some) that she flashed at times as a freshman. Speaking of potential, another freshman, Lena Girardi, showed glimpses of similar capabilities both throughout the season and on the court Monday night (more on both later).

Add in a late-season explosion from Achol Akot across her final five games (20.4 average points and 7.4 average rebounds) largely against some of the season’s top competition, and it’s hard to feel too down about the program’s future.

UCLA took Akot on a rollercoaster ride

The junior struggled inside against UCLA’s bigs for most of the evening. She managed to string together a few streaks and even knocked down her first three of the season, but she was in foul trouble virtually the entire game.

Akot picked up her second foul with 4:16 left in the first quarter, and she didn’t return to the court until a minute into the second. She picked up her third foul 1.5 minutes into the third quarter on an especially ill-advised defensive play at the basket when she should have let the play go.

That all sounds rather negative, but even when she was obviously overmatched inside, seeing limited minutes and playing somewhat cautiously at times to avoid any more fouls, Akot still managed to score a team-high 23 points and finish 10-of-16 from the floor with three rebounds, one block and a steal.

Hoyt and Akot now have more than seven months to put their heads together and use Monday night’s showing (both good and bad) to figure out how to turn her into an even better player next season.

MVP Jadyn Wooten

This time last year, it would have been unthinkable for anyone but Stailee Heard to even be in this conversation.

But Oklahoma State’s sixth woman deserves high praise after finishing second in points (averaging 12.7 per game) while accounting for almost one-third of the team’s assists. Wooten ranked 13th nationally with an assist-turnover ratio of 2.44, and she led half of the players ahead of her in assists per game, where she ranked 23rd with 5.3 per game.

Wooten entered Monday night averaging 15.7 points and 5.8 assists during her last six games, all of which resulted in victories except for the last-second loss to Kansas State in the Big 12 quarterfinals.

Only center Achol Akot outscored her over that same stretch, averaging 17.33 points in those games, and it’s worth noting that Oklahoma State’s biggest loss of the season (by 32 points at West Virginia) came inside that time period in the only game Wooten missed this season.

Several Big 12 coaches took time to single out Wooten when asked what stood out when breaking down the Cowgirls on tape. That was the case again on Monday night.

Yes, Akot was the headline act for most of the evening, but it was Wooten who forced UCLA to call a timeout in the third quarter after she scored on three-of-four consecutive trips down the floor, all on pullup jumpers that reflected everything those Big 12 coaches emphasized throughout the season.

Wooten already had this spot all but locked up before the second round game, but then she put up 18 points and six assists against No. 1 seed UCLA on the Bruins’ home court.

It wouldn’t be shocking to see Heard resume her place as the undisputed face of Oklahoma State on and off the court next year, but for now, this entirely made-up award belongs to Wooten.

Look out for Lena…

Freshman Lena Girardi’s first 3-point shot looked effortless as it swished into the net. Unfortunately for her, officials ruled she stepped out of bounds.

A costly moment shortly after she entered her first basketball game in almost a month, but the freshman didn’t seem rattled. She drilled her next attempt minutes later.

In the third quarter, it was a Girardi 3 that cut UCLA’s lead down to 13 points, which would be the closest the game got since the opening minute of the second quarter.

Girardi played two fewer games this season than Wooten did last year, but Oklahoma State’s freshman more than made an impact during the non-conference portion of the season, scoring 10-plus points in seven of her first eight games and 11 times total through December.

Then came a non-contact injury in practice that left her in a sling ahead of that pivotal visit from Baylor. It makes sense that Hoyt would tighten up the rotation some and that eventually Girardi might hit the freshman wall.

But it feels like her injury probably contributed to her lack of minutes and to her lack of standout plays down the stretch. So with that in mind, I’m buying all the Girardi stock I can get.

It’s also worth noting that Wooten shot 23.5% from the floor in the postseason as a freshman and averaged 3.3 points, four assists, and one steal per game in her three postseason contests last season across the Big 12 Tournament and the first round of the NCAA Tournament.

Even without ending the season on a high point, Wooten looked like a future superstar in the making. She more than made good on that potential this season.

The way Girardi looked at times this season, and as a shooter on Monday, she could make an even bigger impact in her career.