Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 93-55 Loss to No. 12 Texas Tech

BOX SCORE
PHOTOS

STILLWATER — The Cowboys had been rather competitive in the month of February, but that wasn’t the case Saturday.

Oklahoma State fell to Texas Tech 93-55 in Gallagher-Iba Arena. The loss knocks the Cowboys below .500 at 12-13. They’re 4-10 in Big 12 play.

OSU actually hung around early. It was 20-15 with about nine minutes to play in the first half before Tech started to heat up and OSU went from cool to cold. A 9-0 run toward the end of the half saw the Red Raiders take a 43-23 lead into the locker room. Then the second half was a slaughter.

Chi Chi Avery was the only Cowboy in double figures, scoring 13 on 11 shots. Tech had five guys in double figures with JT Toppin leading the was with 32 (just few days after he scored 41).

Here are five thoughts on the game.

1. Biggest Loss Yet

The Cowboys had been playing much better basketball of late, but Saturday was a relapse in the worst way.

The 38-point loss is the worst of the season, surpassing 28-point defeat the Cowboys suffered against Kansas State in Manhattan on Jan. 29 — right before this stretch where OSU started playing better.

“What happened today at 2 o’clock is unacceptable for our program,” OSU coach Steve Lutz said. “We’re better than that. We had been playing better than that, and for whatever reason today, we did not compete at the level that we need to compete at in this league in order to be successful.”

2. Defense Was Bad

There was a stretch midway through the first half where the Cowboys forced six consecutive Tech misses, but from that point on, it felt like the Red Raiders didn’t miss again.

Tech is a good offensive team (it scored 111 in its last game), but OSU allowed 29 more points at home Saturday than the Red Raiders scored in the Jan. 26 matchup in Lubbock.

The Red Raiders scored 48 points off 3s. They could’ve almost beaten the Pokes by just using 3-point shots.

“If we’re going to be a program that hangs our hat on defense and toughness and grit, well, we’re gonna have to do a 180 from today,” Lutz said. “… I don’t think we competed at a high enough level. I don’t think we were tough. I don’t think we had enough fight in us just guarding the basketball and then when there is a drive, coming over and helping stopping the ball and then having guys help the helper, those sorts of things. Things that we’ve done hundreds of times in the course of the season. For whatever reason we did not do those tonight.”

3. And It Was a Rough Day Shooting the Basketball

Midway through the second half, Khalil Brantley drew a foul after grabbing a defensive rebound. After the whistle, he took a for-fun shot from just outside the lane to the side of the basket. It hit the rim and fell short. That’s what kind of day it was for the Cowboys.

OSU finished 19-for-51 from the field, which is 37%. That’s … not good. The Cowboys made just three of their first 14 attempts. Things got a bit better in the second half, where OSU was 11-for-25 (44%), but in a night where the defense wasn’t there, the offense might’ve been just as poor.

4. Free Throws Wouldn’t Even Fall

A big portion of the Cowboys’ offensive output this season has been their ability to get to the foul line. Well, they were getting to the line, but even the free ones wouldn’t fall.

OSU entered Saturday having shot 587 free throws this season. That was 40 more than anyone in the conference. The Pokes got to the stripe 21 times, but they converted only 11 of those. That 52% is the worst OSU has shot in a game this season in games where they’ve taken at least 13 free throws.

“We’ve shot the ball well from the free-throw line all year long — not exceptional but good enough,” Lutz said. “For whatever reason, tonight we did not do that.”

5. Hangover from Wednesday?

With Saturday’s result coming just a few days after the Cowboys lost at the buzzer in Fort Worth, it’s hard not to wonder if Saturday was a hangover from that.

Lutz said the team practiced well Thursday and Friday, and if this was a letdown from Wednesday, it’s unacceptable.

“Any time you lose a heartbreaker like that on the road at TCU, everyone’s gonna say that there’s a hangover from it or it’s hard to get it back — well, that’s not acceptable,” Lutz said. “It’s not acceptable. We all get scholarships. We all get treated well. We had a good crowd here tonight (7,702). We gave them nothing to cheer for, and that’s unacceptable from our basketball team and our basketball program.

“I understand I was hired here to right the ship, and we’re gonna right the ship. Today was just a step backwards. It was a major step backwards but today was a step backwards because we’ve been playing much, much better the last six games. And for whatever reason, today we did not.”

Steve Lutz Postgame News Conference