Oklahoma State’s incredible run continued on Thursday as they knocked off the No. 4 seed West Virginia 72-69 in the opening round of the Big 12 tournament. The Cowboy have now won seven of their last eight games.
Now, they’ll have another chance to do something no one believes they can do: knock off the No. 1 seed in the Big 12, and the No. 2 overall team in the country in Baylor. This will be the second time in as many weeks these two teams will have squared off and third time this season. The Bears won the first game 81-66 and the second 81-70.
Cade Cunningham was asked after the win over West Virginia about the opportunity the Pokes have right now.
“I’m excited,” said Cunningham. “I don’t think anyone expected us to be at this point, especially whenever the sanctions came down and we wouldn’t make the postseason. They thought that everybody would probably leave or whatever, but to see everybody stay the course and buy into the system that coach [Boynton] has set in place, I’m excited. I’m excited to see how far we can go with this and we’re going to try and make the most out of every moment, live in the moment and see how far we can go.”
Baylor is coming off a hard-fought 74-68 win over cellar-dweller Kansas State Thursday afternoon. They were led by senior guard MaCio Teague, who finished with 24 points, but was just ahead of junior guards Davion Mitchell and Jared Butler, who scored 23 points and 18 points respectively.
As for the Pokes, Cade Cunningham finished with 17 points, as did red-hot Avery Anderson III. Kalib Boone also finished with 10 rebounds.
It was also the first game back in nearly a month for junior point guard Isaac Likekele, who finished with 10 points, seven rebounds and three assists. It took him a little bit of time to get going, but he hit two clutch free throws with less than a minute in the game and recorded game-saving block to give the Pokes the win.
The Cowboys will certainly need to try and limit turnovers as they finished with 20 against West Virginia, though they did force 15 on the other end.
Even with having dropped the first two games to Baylor, this third match up has an Elite Eight type of feel to it. Baylor back where people expected them to do, Oklahoma State in a place no one thought they’d be due to the NCAA postseason ban, yet here they are, two games into the Big 12 tournament with Selection Sunday just right around the corner.
Mike Boynton and Co. have certainly had the basketball gods smiling down upon them this season, but it also helped to have quite a bit of talent and one of the best runs in the country down the stretch.
Tipoff is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. CT on ESPN.
