Missouri
Oklahoma State
Women Eliminated From Big 12 Tournament, 56-54
3/11/2003 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
March 11, 2003
DALLAS - Junior center Trisha Skibbe hit a pair of free throws with 18.1 seconds left to lead No. 11 seed Oklahoma State to a 56-54 upset of the sixth-seeded Tigers in Wednesday's first round of the Big 12 Conference Tournament. Oklahoma State (8-20) advances to face No. 3 seed Texas Tech, while the Tigers (15-13) are eliminated and await word of postseason play on Sunday.
Junior forward Evan Unrau (Fort Collins, Colo. / Rocky Mountain HS) led all scorers with 18 points, and she set her season high with a game-high-tying 14 rebounds for her eighth double-double of the season. Junior forward Stretch James (Columbus, Ohio / Northland HS / Tyler [Texas] JC) posted her third of the year by tallying 16 points and a season-high 12 rebounds.
In a game that saw three ties and 10 lead changes, the Cowgirls did not relinquish the lead for the final 6 minutes, 58 seconds of the game. Missouri twice pulled within one, and the Tigers tied the game at 54 when junior guard Tracy Lozier (Leawood, Kan. / Blue Valley North HS) stole the ball at halfcourt and found James open under the basket with 1:46 left in the game. After an OSU miss and a Missouri turnover, Skibbe - who finished with 14 points and 14 rebounds - was fouled while rebounding a miss by senior guard Kerensa Barr (West Plains, Mo. / West Plains HS) and hit the winning free throws.
Lozier had a good look from the right corner in front of the Tiger bench with 5 seconds left, and Unrau missed a putback from eight feet out that drew iron and caromed to the side as the buzzer sounded.
"There are not a whole lot of words to say how discouraged we are at this point," Head Coach Cindy Stein said. "I felt like our team really fought hard. I'm really proud of my players. They fought, and they fought until the very end. We had a chance to either tie or win the game at the end, but the shots did not go down. There is nothing you can do after that."
The Tigers took an early 8-0 lead on a turnaround jumper by James sandwiched between a pair of 3-pointers by Unrau. Oklahoma State got its offense going a few minutes later, as Skibbe got her first basket with 9:42 remaining in the half to pull the Cowgirls within a pair at 10-8. OSU got its first lead with 7:37 to go, and the two teams traded leads seven more times in the half until Mizzou pulled away going into the locker room with a 28-23 advantage.
Unrau and James led all scorers with 10 points apiece at the half, while Unrau added eight rebounds. The Tigers had a slim edge in field-goal shooting (33.3 to 32.1 percent), yet had a tremendous 24-16 edge on the glass helped in large part to their nine offensive rebounds. Mizzou would finish with a 47-30 edge - including 20 offensive rebounds - for the game.
The Tigers got off to a quick start with a 3-pointer by Lozier just over a minute into the second have to extend the MU lead to seven, and hit another with 11:25 left to restore it to seven (42-35). Yet the Cowgirls tied the score just over 2 minutes later on a 3-pointer by Meghan Craig and four Chantoya Hawkins free throws. OSU took the lead with 6:58 left on another trey - the sixth of the game for the Cowgirls - by Thia Willis.
