Instacap: Oklahoma State Falls at Home 82-72 to Kansas State

The Cowboys welcomed the Wildcats for a Valentine’s Day tilt with a chance to claim consecutive Big 12 wins for the first time this year and to climb into the top four of the conference. More importantly, OSU had a chance to build some momentum and push its name across the table of the bubble teams up for consideration.

Unfortunately, it’s hard not to say that the Cowboys squandered those opportunities.

It was an ugly start for the Pokes who hit just 6 of their first 30 shots and only 2 of their first 7 from 3. The home rims were not friendly but the Cowboys were settling for a ton of 3s and contested shots early, and pretty much sleepwalked through their offense.

The OSU defense was also wanting for most of the night. K-State picked apart the Cowboys in the pick-and-roll with often no rotation to the basket. If Kansas State players weren’t shooting open layups, they were looking around to make sure they were under the right basket because no one was within arm’s reach.

After going down 20 on the first shot of the second half, the Cowboys showed a little life climbing back within 14 and 15 a couple of times before the Wildcats made a stand and snuffed out any chance of an OSU comeback. The closest the Pokes got was the Kendall Smith layup to pull within 10 on the final possession.

When it was over

It was probably over long before this but the nail was seated deeply into the Cowboys’ coffin with 5:14 remaining. OSU had pulled within 16 again with just over 5 minutes remaining. But following a Tavarius Shine turnover, Kamau Stokes made his third 3-point in four tries and hushed the crowd of jilted Valentines inside GIA.

Player of the game

A quick look at the stat sheet tells me it’s got to be Kendall Smith who led the Cowboys with 16 points on 8 of 18 from the field. He settled for one bad 3 very early but didn’t take another. He grabbed 7 rebounds and went 1-to-1 assists to turnovers.

Smith’s job is to run the offense and, for most the game, the Cowboys looked inept on that side of the court. But his effort was there until the end and there honestly wasn’t another Cowboy I could consider.

Stat(s) you should know

The Cowboys owned the offensive glass 16-2 and bested the ‘Cats 22-5 in second-chance points. That was one of my keys for OSU to win.

However, that disparity represents a bit of fool’s gold. For one, Kansas State came in as the worst rebounding team in the Big 12 statistically. Last in rebounding margin, offense rebounds, defensive rebounds and offensive rebounding percentage. So not a huge accomplishment.

Secondly, the Cowboys missed 38 of 65 shots (!) and only corralled 22 of those 38 misses. K-State shot 55 percent from the field, and frankly didn’t need to clean up the glass because they had so many wide-open layups and 3-pointers.

What’s next

The Cowboys head to Fort Worth to try and right the ship on the road — and continue their teeter-totter trend — with a 7 p.m. Saturday night matchup against a TCU team that’s lost three of four.