STILLWATER – After a late fight down the stretch of the season, Oklahoma State men’s basketball has failed to make the 2023 NCAA tournament. They finished the season with an 18-15 overall record and an 8-10 record in conference play.
“They had 18 opportunities in the Quad 1 and they won only six games,” said Chris Reynolds, the NCAA tournament selection committee chair. “They had opportunities in the non-conference schedule to win some games and enhance their resume and they fell short.”
It’s certainly a disappointing end to a once promising season. The Cowboys had a couple of Quad 2 losses early in the season, as well as a 1-4 start to Big 12 play. After that, they rattled off six wins in seven conference games, which included sweeps of Iowa State and Oklahoma, and a ranked win over TCU, as well as seven of eight with an 82-60 blowout of Ole Miss in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
But it was a tough end to conference play that doomed the Cowboys’ chances. They lost a nine-point game to Kansas, 87-76, a 25-point loss to TCU in Fort Worth, 100-75, an 18-point loss to West Virginia in Morgantown, 85-67, a five-point loss to Kansas State in Stillwater and a five-point loss to Baylor in Stillwater to make it five-straight losses.
They snapped that streak with a nice 71-68 win over Texas Tech in Lubbock to finish the regular season.
They kept their tournament hopes alive with a 57-49 win over Oklahoma in the Big 12 quarterfinals, making it a three-game sweep of the Sooners.
However, it was the 60-47 loss to Texas in the semifinals in which the Cowboys shot just 27% from the field and just 14% from 3-point range.
