STILLWATER – Things were really good for Cowboy basketball as earlier in the day the Pokes had seen the basketball media in the A.P. Poll and the coaches voting in the USA Today Poll push the Cowboys in votes received up to where they would be No. 30 if the polls were extended. Oklahoma State was coming off an 82-77 win in overtime at Texas Tech. Now with 11:15 on the scoreboard clock left in the second half and freshman Rondel Walker was at the free throw line and the freshman from Putnam City West dropped them both in the basket to make the score 68-49, a 19-point lead.
This is where you get the feeling that nothing can stop you know, but 11:15 is an eternity in Big 12 basketball and when you are young, a young basketball team, things can get away from you. The rest of the way the Mountaineers used a smaller line-up finally adjusting for the permanent absence of Oscar Tshiebwe, who is transferring away from WVU. Derek Culver settled in with four guards and it looked like the re-emergence of “press Virginia”.
Oklahoma State Athletics
Derek Culver and the WVU guards recreated “press Viginia.”
The Cowboys only turned the ball over 12 times in the game, but seven of those turnovers came in that final 11:15 of the game. It wasn’t rookies either as Isaac Likekele and Cade Cunningham had multiple miscues, but they also combined for 47 points, 16 rebounds, and seven assists.
West Virginia outscored Oklahoma State 38-to-16 in that final 11:15 and didn’t need all the time to get the lead as the Mountaineers took the lead with 3:02 left on the clock on a three-pointer by Miles McBride.
“The Big 12 is not going to be easy and every team is going to come to play,” Cunningham said afterwards in the postgame Zoom conference. “You going to have to play all 40 minutes.”
At the end after the Cowboys saw Cunningham foul out in the final minute and the furious rally the Cowboys were pushing in the final minute fell short. West Virginia had their comeback for the ages, their biggest since joining the Big 12 winning 87-84.
“Tonight, was a night for sure, should have won the game, no doubt about it,” head coach Mike Boynton said. “(We) played well enough for 32 minutes and to be clearly the better team tonight, I hope our guys take away from it that you have to finish. You’ve got to continue to do the things that got you the lead. You can’t play differently and as hard as it is to win, teams don’t lay down, no matter what. West Virginia to their credit continued to fight.”
Oklahoma State Athletics
Isaac Likekele had 22 points and seven rebounds in the loss.
As the Cowboys lined up for the alma mater, Isaac Likekele steered his eyes toward the rafter of Gallagher-Iba Arena and as the ESPN camera ran past all the Cowboys, many of them with blank stares, it finished on Cunningham, who standing next to Boynton, was subtly shaking his head.
That is what this was, a head shaker and for a young Oklahoma State basketball team, a painful lesson.
“I’m not sure that we’ve figured out how to play with a lead and that kind of prosperity,” Boynton said. “Until the finality of the game being over and you lose it doesn’t seem like its’ possible and then it is over and you’ve lost. That is where our guys are. I sense a lot of frustration and disappointment, but a little bit of shock.”
It was shocking and now they have the rest of the week before heading to Kansas State next Saturday to get over it, to learn from it, and to do everything they can to keep something like this from happening to this team ever again.
