OSU Cowgirls stretch run: Cowgirls focus on top-4 finish

By Scott Nulph Stillwater NewsPress

STILLWATER — Most college basketball teams don’t wait until February to hit their first road block of the season.

That’s a testament to how good the Oklahoma State Cowgirls have been this season.

It took the Cowgirls almost three months to lose back-to-back games and despite losses to No. 3 Nebraska on Wednesday and No. 12 Oklahoma on Saturday, the Cowgirls will wake up today squarely in the Top 25 and tied for second place in the Big 12 with seven games remaining.

“We’ll pull our heads back up and come out to practice next week and we’ll figure out a way to do it better than we did,” said OSU coach Kurt Budke after Saturday’s 77-66 loss to the Sooners. “We’ve got a lot of tough games left, but I think it’s going to be good to be home for a while.”

The No. 15 Cowgirls (18-5 overall, 6-3 Big 12) enter their bye week with goals that are still attainable, except winning the Big 12 regular-season championship.

Undefeated Nebraska has all but locked up the regular-season title by beating Texas A&M on Saturday. The Cornhuskers have a three-game lead over the rest of the field and are unlikely to drop more than a game or two down the stretch.

“I really believe the Big 12 championship’s over with,” Budke said. “They’ve already won at Iowa State and Baylor, they’ve beaten Texas, us and Texas A&M at home. Now the rest of us have three losses and probably heading toward more with this league.

“Unless Nebraska has some injuries it will be tough to catch them. So now you’re fighting for trying to finish in the top four and get a bye in the first round (of the conference tournament). If they (Nebraska) stay healthy, they’re not going to be caught.”

The next goal up for the Cowgirls, as Budke said, will to try and remain among the top-four teams to receive a bye in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.

Only once since the Big 12 started in 1996 have the Cowgirls earned a top-four seed, which came in 2008. As the third seed, OSU advanced to the title game before falling 64-59 to Texas A&M.

In fact, the 2007-08 team is the only Cowgirls’ squad to ever make it past the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Championship.

Oklahoma State will also be playing for NCAA tournament seeding over the final seven games.

A fact the Cowgirls know they will have to deal with if they earn an NCAA bid will be playing that first-round game without All-American candidate point guard Andrea Riley. Riley was suspended by the NCAA for one tournament game back in 2008 and the NCAA hasn’t rescinded the suspension.

No matter what the Cowgirls are playing for, it won’t be easy.

Of OSU’s final seven games, five are against ranked teams with only Texas Tech (twice) not among the nation’s elite. Four of the seven, however, are at home.

Both Iowa State and Oklahoma – Oklahoma State’s final two games – share second place with the Cowgirls with Texas a half-game behind.

Despite its first losing skid of the season, the bye seems to come at a good time for OSU, who has appeared to be running low on gas the past few games.

“I’m glad we have a week off,” Riley said. “We’ll find out what type of team we are. Having this week off and practicing and doing what you have to do to get stronger as a team and come together. You can figure out what you have to do, what you did do and the mistakes you made to try and correct them for the next game.”

Riley is one Cowgirl who has been through this type of lull before. The 2007-08 Sweet 16 team lost three of four toward the end of the regular season and still rebounded to finish strong.

“Just got to talk to the team and say that we’ve been through it before,” Riley said. “My sophomore year we went through it and we really decided to bounce back. It just shows who you are and how you are mentally.”

Her head coach agrees.

“It’s not the end of the season, we’re still not in a bad spot,” Budke said. “That’s what we can’t forget. It’s not the end of the world because we’re still in second place and we’ve got a couple of home games coming up.”

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