Jacie Hoyt Talks Oklahoma State vs. Miami in NCAA Tournament
STILLWATER – Oklahoma State’s Cowgirls head to new territory this weekend as the complete turnaround crew goes to Bloomington, Ind. and the Indiana University campus to the Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall for their first round NCAA Tournament game against Miami, Fla. at 1 p.m. on March 18.
Last season at this time OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg was making the change and dismissing Jim Littell after a 9-20/3-15 season. Weiberg brought in Jacie Hoyt from Missouri-Kansas City (UMKC) as the new head coach and now with a 21-11 record and 10-8 in Big 12 play the Cowgirls are the No. 8 seed heading north to play No. 9 Miami, Fla. (19-12/11-7).
Hoyt has a collection of four players off last year’s team including the very athletic Taylon Collins, guard Lexi Keys, and post Kassidy DeLapp with transfers like Naomie Alnatas, who came with Hoyt from Kansas City, Anna Gret Asi from Arizona, Claire Chastain and Terryn Milton from UT-Arlington, and Lior Garzon from Villanova.
Hoyt has been proud of how these players have bought into what she was pushing. It has been complete buy-in to the cause and to each other.
Now, this week they have had the chance to get back to working on their games and getting better after the long haul of the Big 12 season.
“It’s the most prep we’ve had in a long time since we had the off week. You forget, but you go from scout, scout, scout and playing in conference and you never get to work on yourselves. Just our execution, details, little things within our offense,” OSU coach Jacie Hoyt said. “I feel like we’ve gotten away from running in transition the way we were early on this season. Getting back to that, this has been a good week just working on us. It’s been a good week.”
Miami, Fla. is a good team with two second-team All-ACC players in top rebounder and forward Destiny Harden and top scorer and social media sensation along with her twin Haley Cavinder. Miami is a physical team.
They are also a finess team with Cavinder and her twin Hannah flashing the pizzaz. Cavinder averages 12.8-points a game and is shooting 40% from beyond the arc.
“It’s a very evenly matched team for us, statistically” Hoyt said. “They’re really, really good at rebounding the ball, they’re going to be physical. They have two players that we have to focus on defensively. The biggest thing is we’ve got to take care of the basketball and rebound.”
Hoyt had a big smile as she gave part of her scouting report.
“We feel like we’ve got opportunities to really score it and the way that they play their defense, they give up a lot of threes, which is great for us,” Hoyt said smiling.