Oklahoma State Unable To Keep Up With Baylor’s Blistering 3-Point Pace Despite Better Than Average Night From Cowboys

STILLWATER — Back-to-back 3s from Anthony Roy injected new life back into Gallagher-Iba Arena with 12 minutes to play, but ultimately the Cowboys were unable to completely climb back in Tuesday night’s 94-79 loss to Baylor.

The Bears led by as much as 24 early in the second half, largely because they seemed unable to miss shooting 73% overall and 64% from 3 (resulting in nine 3-pointers) in the first half alone.

“There’s two mindsets right, number one is defend them, get your hands up and hope they miss, and number two is be there on the catch, apply pressure and make them miss,” Oklahoma State coach Steve Lutz said. “And we didn’t make them miss. … But when the time came for somebody to rise up and either make a shot or get a defensive stop, they did their job, and we did not.

“And that’s the story of the game.”

Vyctorius Miller knocked down all three of his 3-pointers taken in the first 8.5 minutes of the game to keep OSU even with the Bears both in made 3-point shots (four each) and 3-point shooting percentage (67%).

Baylor (11-5, 1-3 Big 12) cooled off a little bit finishing 59% overall and 52% beyond the arc for 13 3-pointers.

“You can’t let somebody come into your gym and score, hang 57 on you in the first half and go, oh, they just shot the ball real well, man, I ain’t trying to hear that,” Lutz said. “Nobody’s trying to hear that. You’ve got to figure out a way to be tough enough, gritty enough, to make them miss and be better defensively, and that therein lies the difference between winning and losing tonight, 57 points in the first half.”

Baylor’s hot shooting night smothered a pretty efficient night for the Cowboys (13-4, 1-3 Big 12). Oklahoma State finished 10-of-25 (40%) beyond the arc which is the team’s third-best shooting percentage behind only a 47% night against Cal State Fullerton and a 50% performance against South Florida.

One area the Cowboys really struggled to capitalize came on second-chance points as OSU scored only 15 on 15 offensive rebound.

Parsa Fallah finished with a team-high 18 points and nine rebounds in the loss despite exiting the game for an extended absence after he hobbled off the court with what appeared to be a lower body injury with 16:40 left. Fallah already had 16 points and seven rebounds.

In the postgame press conference Lutz said Fallah left the game due to cramps.

He checked back in with seven minutes left.

Roy finished the night with 17 points after shooting 5-of-12 from 3.

The loss came in front of a crowd of 7,514, which included an estimated 3,000 students.The Cowboy faithful made their prescence known, especially when OSU cut the deficit to 10 with 7:44 to play.

“Fantastic, those kids were loud,” Lutz said. “When we got it to 10 man, that is what Gallagher-Iba should be. And then our job, if you will, is to then finish the game off and we did not do that tonight.”