Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 102-80 Loss to Texas Tech

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If they didn’t already know, the Cowboys found out Saturday that the Big 12 is no joke.

Oklahoma State got clobbered 102-80 in Lubbock on Saturday afternoon. Here are five thoughts from the game.

1. Tech Hit Everything

This OSU defense has had question marks surrounding it for much of the nonconference, and the Cowboys gave up 102 points on 48% shooting in their first Big 12 game.

That’s (obviously) not going to do it. Not only did the Red Raiders shoot 48% from the field, they shot 46% from 3 on 37 attempts, meaning they scored 51 points off 3-pointers.

This marks the seventh time this season a team has shot 36% or better from 3 against the Cowboys, and the 17 Tech makes are a season-high that the Cowboys have given up.

Tech also deserves a shoutout here, though. A team going 17-for-37 from 3 could be hard to do on air.

2. Roy Was the Only Cowboy Who Could Hit Anything

If you’re going to give up 51 points in made 3s, you better be able to keep up. The Pokes couldn’t.

Anthony Roy was 6-for-8 from 3 as part of his team-high 22 points. Outside of Roy, the Cowboys went 2-for-18 from 3. One of those came from Parsa Fallah (just his fifth career 3-point make), and the other was part of a late burst from Jaylen Curry.

Curry scored 11 of his 13 points in the final five minutes of the game when it was more of a formality, so take that in mind as I write that Curry, Kanye Clary, Vyctorius Miller, Christian Coleman and Isaiah Coleman combined for 27 points (again, 11 came from Curry in the final five minutes) on 11-for-41 (27%) shooting from the field and 1-for-16 (you don’t want to know the percentage) from 3-point range.

There will be times this season that the Cowboys are hot and the offense either keeps them in a game they shouldn’t be in or blows out a team that is having its own tough shooting night. But the Cowboys could not hit the broad side of a barn in Lubbock.

3. Killed on the Boards

Any team with JT Toppin on it is going to be good at rebounding, but the Cowboys got beat 48-36 on the glass in Lubbock.

Fourteen of those Tech boards were offensive, with the Red Raiders holding an 18-9 advantage in second-chance points.

It marks just the third time the Cowboys have been outrebound this season with the 12-rebound difference being worst OSU has finished a game with.

Toppin was the Cowboys’ biggest issue, as he finished with 23 points and 14 rebounds. Five of those rebounds were on the offensive end.

4. Ahmed’s Stock Continues to Rise

Just four games into his college career, and Ben Ahmed is already a more-than-solid college basketball player. And with each passing game, the ceiling of what he can be seems to get higher and higher.

He finished his first Big 12 game with nine points and five boards and was 4-for-4 from the field. More than any numbers, he seems to just inject energy for a team that needs that juice from time to time.

He knows what he’s there to do — play defense, rebound the ball and eat what he kills.

With about six minutes to play in the first half, Ahmed subbed in and went on a 7-0 run by himself with five of those points coming after he got an offensive board.

Makin’ it look easy @bigbe_nn

📺: ESPN2 pic.twitter.com/p51D9tyil7

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) January 3, 2026

That run late in the first half pulled OSU within six points, which would be the closest the Cowboys came from that point on.

Ahmed played a career-high 17 minutes in Lubbock, working his way back from a foot injury that saw him miss much of the noncon. There were times he was out there along with veteran center Parsa Fallah.

Fallah 1k: Speaking of, Fallah scored 20 points in his first Big 12 game. He deserves a shoutout, but I thought two of the five thoughts going to centers in a positive manner after the Cowboys lost by 22 would be odd.

He reached the 1,000-point threshold for his career on Thursday, a career that’s spanned stops at Southern Utah, Oregon State and now Oklahoma State.

Fallah was the rock he seemingly always is in Lubbock, but things weren’t going well around him.

5. The Big 12 Keeps Rolling, How Will the Pokes Respond?

Tough afternoon, how do the Cowboys bounce back? Well, they host a UCF squad that entered Saturday at 11-1 on Tuesday before getting back on the road to go play Iowa State, a team that is currently 14-0.

In other words, the Cowboys will get no sympathy from the schedule for the difficult day in Lubbock.

I think we’ll know a lot about this OSU team after this three-game stretch. Even if the results aren’t there, responses in effort and whether this team betters areas it lacks in could highlight whether this was just a fun nonconference stretch or if the Cowboys are real players in a ridiculously competitive Big 12.