Do the Pokes Still Have Wind in Their Sails Following the Bedlam Sweep?

STILLWATER - It was a bit of a rough weekend for Oklahoma State team sports played in Gallagher-Iba Arena this past weekend. Cowgirl basketball was throttled by Oklahoma down in Norman, 91-56, Cowboy wrestling fell to Iowa on Sunday, 22-9, and Cowboy basketball dropped a heartbreaker to Oklahoma in overtime, 84-82.

The loss for the Cowboys on the hardwood, which solidified the regular season sweep for the Sooners in the final Big 12 Bedlam game, came on a deep buzzer-beater 3-pointer from Gavin McCollum.

No mater what you thought of the shot, like was McCollum out of bounds or not, a lot of little things led up to the loss for the Pokes. Like an untimely missed free throw by Javon Small on the other end of the court, leading to the Sooner bucket on the other end.

Either way, the Cowboys failed to take advantage of a ruckus atmosphere of a near-sold out GIA, fell to 12-15 on the season, 4-10 in Big 12 play and ended a two-game win streak which included some of the best shooting we’ve seen from the Pokes all season.

But that’s just it, right? The Cowboys shot the lights out against the Sooners, shooting nearly 58% from the field and recorded single-digit turnovers, two stat lines we haven’t seen too much of the past few seasons. In fact, they outshot the Sooners in all three areas on the court, albeit by a slim margin from the free throw line and 3-point range, but the fact’s still there: the Cowboys have played very good basketball the past few weeks.

They had an incredible upset over a top-20 BYU team by double-digits in Stillwater and went on the road to Cincinnati and held on to beat a talented Bearcats team. Those two wins, combined with the fact the Cowboys gave away the first Bedlam game in Norman with frustrating little mistakes in the second half, almost guaranteed a Bedlam split for the Pokes. Then you look at the remainder of the schedule and it’s fairly favorable for the Pokes. Not guaranteed to win out, but certainly above .500 favorable.

So, the question that needs to be asked is: was that loss too much for the Cowboys emotionally?

I think the wins over BYU and Cincinnati should tell us what we need to know about this young team. We’ve seen All-Big 12-type performances out of Javon Small, Eric Dailey Jr., Brandon Garrison and Jamyron Keller the past few weeks. Yes, the loss to Oklahoma for the sweep, especially how the loss came on a buzzer-beater in Stillwater, was devastating, but you don’t really need to argue the fact the season up to the BYU game was more devastating. There’s a virtual zero percent chance the Cowboys are going to play in the NCAA tournament, so other than winning out and winning the Big 12 tournament, which is a tall order, what’s left for this team to play for? Pride, and we’ve seen that the past few weeks.

Obviously, time will tell if the OU sweep took the remaining wind out of the Pokes’ sails, but Quion Williams said it best following Bedlam: next game’s a quick turnaround. They have UCF on Wednesday, Feb. 28 in Stillwater. We’ll see how the Pokes respond.