Trap game.
That’s exactly what it looked like Sunday afternoon when the No. 11 OU women’s basketball team narrowly escaped unranked Kansas State in a 64-58 win.
The Sooners have a game looming against Nebraska on Wednesday night, but OU could not breeze through Sunday afternoon.
Senior guard Nyeshia Stevenson drained a three from the corner to start the game, but the fast start was short lived for OU.
Through six minutes the score stalled at a 6-5 Wildcat lead.
Fourteen first half turnovers disrupted the Sooner offense and allowed KSU to go up 12-9.
The Wildcats’ offense only grew stronger from there.
The first half was sloppy for the struggling Sooners, and KSU built a 15-point lead with less than three minutes left in the half.
The Sooner woes continued into the locker room with the Wildcats’ largest lead in the game, 34-18.
Eighteen points in the first half was a season low for head coach Sherri Coale’s team.
OU shot only 35 percent in the first half and were outrebound 17-16.
The early second half was no kinder to the Sooners than the first, when KSU built a 20-point lead after just two minutes.
But OU would not stay down for long.
Slowly the Sooners began to cut the deficit and, with 12:50 remaining, senior forward Amanda Thompson laid up the floater and was fouled to slice the Wildcat lead to eight.
Shooting 58 percent, OU battled back to 43-37 on a 15-0 run.
With 5:20 left in the game, Stevenson drained a three-point shot to knot the game 51-51.
The Wildcats could not answer the Sooners as the second half waned, and OU took its first lead since early in the first half.
Thompson led the Sooners back into the game in the second half, finishing with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Stevenson added 24 points in the second half.
OU went up 60-54 with less than a minute and the Wildcats did not close the gap.
OU finished the game shooting 42.6 percent and out-rebounded the Wildcats 41-28.
After the close call in the Manhattan, OU now returns home to face Big 12 leader and undefeated Nebraska at 7 p.m. Wednesday at Lloyd Noble Center.
The Oklahoma Daily is pleased to provide you the opportunity to share your thoughts about this article. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or straying from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of OUDaily.com. Thanks for taking the time to offer your thoughts.
You must be logged in to leave a comment. Log in | Register