The Oklahoma State women's basketball team lost its Big 12 opener Wednesday, Jan. 2, 2013, to Texas Tech, 64-59. The Cowgirls 17-game winning streak dating back to last season, came to an end.
The game was close most of the way. Chynna Brown hit a 3-pointer with 45 seconds left that broke a tie. From there Texas Tech hit free throws and held off Oklahoma State.
Brown finished with 15 points and Kelsi Baker had 14 for the Red Raiders.
Tiffany Bias scored 27 for Oklahoma State. Toni Young had 12 points and 12 rebounds before fouling out with just over a minute left.
No. 13 Oklahoma State jumped out early and led 18-5 in the opening minutes, but Texas Tech regroupled and managed a 32-27 lead at halftime. Texas Tech shot 44 percent from the field and Oklahoma State was at 38 percent.
The road gets much more difficult for the Cowgirls as the team plays at No. 3 Baylor Sunday.
“Give Texas Tech a lot of credit for being down 17-3 and keeping great composure and hanging in there and playing. It’s a disappointing loss for us. Every game you play at home is very crucial. When we got a lead early I felt we missed a lot of easy shots that we normally hit. We didn’t make many good decisions with the basketball that we needed to make. I’m proud of our kids for battling back and taking the lead. Then it becomes a grind and we didn’t get some of the stops that we needed to get. In the last five or six minutes of the game it seemed like they stepped up and hit really big shots or we had a defensive mistake that left someone open. I told our players that this league is a journey. It is not a sprint. It doesn’t get any easier. We go down to Baylor to play probably the best team in the country. What matters is now we have to go get a road game because we let this home game escape.” Oklahoma State coach Jim Littell said after the game.
“I made a lot of mistakes that I shouldn’t have as a point guard. We didn’t have as great of a night as we should have. We didn’t make easy shots and that kind of hurt us. It’s not a great game to me because points don’t matter; I’d rather have the whole team balanced and a lot of the team in double-figures. I think we made a lot of little mistakes that we usually don’t make and that hurt us. It’s a learning lesson and we’ll go back and fix it tonight or tomorrow.”
Bias had some mistakes and turnovers down the stretch, but kept the Cowgirls in the game with her 27 points.
“I think they stuck with the press. They saw it rattled us a little bit and they just kept pushing and kept pressuring and we didn’t adjust well, which is not like us. Usually adjust and calm down. That’s just one of those things where it’s a focus thing. We’ll work on it and we’ll get better for the next game. I think we have a lot to work on and we’ll get it figured out for the next game. We’ll be fine.” Bias said.
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