Jacie Hoyt Rolls Up Her Sleeves and Starts Oklahoma State Women's Rebuild
STILLWATER – As Zach Lancaster reported on Tuesday night Oklahoma State women’s basketball landed Talexa Weeter, the NCAA Division II Player of the Year from Fort Hayes State. She was Kansas Miss Basketball in high school at Goodland. She is a player who certainly fits in the wheelhouse for Cowgirls head coach Jacie Hoyt, a former schoolgirl star in Kansas high school basketball as well. Hoyt has lost four-of-five starters and her sixth player off the bench to either exhausted eleigibility or to the transfer portal since the end of the season. The team’s final game together was a second round NCAA Tournament 86-67 loss to UCLA. The Cowgirls finished 24-10 but with lots of promise if the players who could return for next season did. They didn’t.
Starters Achol Akot and Amari Whiting as well as sixth player Jadyn Wooten entered the portal. Other Cowgirls that exited the program through the portal include, most recently freshman Lena Girardi, Macey Huard, Tyla Heard, Favour Onoh and Faith Acker. Seniors Micah Gray, Haleigh Timmer, and Wilnie Joseph are also gone.
Two-time All-Big 12 honoree Stailee Heard is coming back to finish her career next season. There is no word on back-up post Praise Egharevba.
Hoyt, besides picking up Wheeler with a social media commitment on Tuesday, took to social media herself to message back to her fans and to the basketball community.
Wheeler will be a major addition. She was the nation’s leading scorer among all Division I and Division II programs last season. She started 31 of 31 games as a junior and averaged 27.5 points per game on 52% shooting from the field and nearly 40% from 3-point range. She also averaged close to nine rebounds with 48 assists, 84 turnovers and 43 steals.
Now Hoyt, who has four freshmen coming, has work to do with her staff to continue the “reload.”
