Recap: Cowboys Fall 69-50 in Morgantown

BOX SCORE

The Cowboys outplayed the Mountaineers in second half in Morgantown on Saturday, but the Mountaineers dominated the first half in such a way that the Cowboys’ strong finish didn’t matter much.

West Virginia beat Oklahoma State 69-50. The loss pushes OSU down to 8-5 this season with an 0-2 start to Big 12 play. New OSU coach Steve Lutz has talked at different times this season about putting together a full 40 minutes. The search for that will continue to OSU’s Tuesday matchup against Kansas State.

After a rough first half Saturday that saw the Cowboys go into the locker room down 46-19, the Pokes played quite a bit better in the final 20 minutes, outscoring the Mountaineers 31-23, but the damage of the first half was too much to overcome.

The game started as a defensive struggle. WVU’s lead was 10-6 after an Abou Ousmane layup with about 11 minutes left in the first half. At that time, OSU was shooting 17% from the field to the Mountaineers’ 25%. The issue for the Cowboys was that from that point on in the opening half, WVU shot 61% to OSU’s 31%.

OSU started 2-for-18 from the field before Marchelus “Chi Chi” Avery went on an 8-0 run that included a pair of 3-point makes. That 8-0 run, though, still left WVU with a 17-point lead. Avery finished with a team-high 15 points. Between the aforementioned Ousmane layup and the start of Avery’s 8-0 run, OSU was outscored 22-1 over a 5:23 stretch.

Second-chance points were among the many things the Cowboys struggled with in the first half. WVU had just two more offensive rebounds than the Cowboys in the first, but the Mountaineers’ seven offensive boards turned into 13 second-chance points while the Cowboys’ five offensive rebounds led to three OSU points.

WVU was also bordering nuclear from 3-point range in the opening 20 minutes, making eight 3s at a 42% clip. The most shining example of WVU going crazy from 3 was WVU guard Sencire Harris. Harris was 0-for-26 from 3 this season entering Saturday’s game but went 2-for-4 from 3 in the first half with the Cowboys playing off him.

Credit to the Cowboys for not quitting despite the uphill trek that was ahead. OSU worked inside-out in the second half, scoring 20 points in the paint and getting to the line 13 times. Ousmane was held to a season-low five points against Houston earlier this week, but he finished with 14 against WVU to go with 11 rebounds, marking his first double-double as a Cowboy. A dozen of Ousmane’s points came in the second half, where he was 5-for-7 from the field.

With WVU leading by as many as 28 Saturday, the Cowboys cut that lead down to 13 on two occasions in the second half, thanks in large part to a 17-2 run. Thirteen of the OSU points in that run came from the Ousmane-Avery combination.

Former Cowboy Javon Small entered Saturday leading the Big 12 in scoring, and he looked like a potential All-American against his former team. Small finished with a game-high 24 points to go with 11 rebounds and four assists. He scored 18 in the first half.

The Cowboys have another shot at their first Big 12 win of the season on Tuesday when they host Kansas State. The Wildcats are 7-5 entering a Saturday afternoon matchup with TCU. K-State has losses to LSU, Liberty, St. John’s, Drake and Wichita State — so Saturday would be as good a time as any for the Pokes to get in the win column. OSU and K-State tip at 7 p.m. Tuesday.