It’s hard to compete against a nationally ranked opponent in basketball when you can only go two players deep into your bench. It’s nearly impossible to compete when those two bench players only combine to produce four points.
There the Cowboys were though, through twenty minutes of action at Allen Fieldhouse they had played #13 Kansas to a 36-36 draw. Oklahoma State would match that point total again in the second half but Kansas pulled away by scoring 48 second half points in route to an 84-72 victory.
Forward Cameron McGriff shot 7-of-14 from the floor, scoring 22 points to pace the Cowboys. He also grabbed a team-high six rebounds along the way.
Isaac Likekele (14), Lindy Waters (13), and Thomas Dziagwa (11) all produced double figure scoring performances, backing up head coach Mike Boynton’s stance that the Pokes will keep fighting all the way to the end of the season.
The Jayhawks started the second half on a 6-0 run but a three-point shot by Cameron McGriff knotted the game back up at 49-49 with fourteen minutes and some change left in the game.
Kansas then went on a 16-2 run over the next four and a half minutes to pull away for good as the Cowboys began to fade.
The loss was OSU’s sixth in a row in conference play, dropping their record to 2-8 in the Big 12.
The Cowboys will host #18 Texas Tech in a Big Monday battle next.