What Do Bedlam Doubleheader Losses Mean for Cowboys, Cowgirls?
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Oklahoma State had two tries but couldn’t get a win against its biggest rival.
On Saturday, OSU’s men’s and women’s basketball teams each played against Oklahoma at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City. With the Bedlam doubleheader giving the programs a chance to get some early-season signature wins, both came up short.
For the Cowboys, their 85-76 was their first of the young season, dropping to 9-1 after being on the cusp of entering the AP top 25 for the first time since Cade Cunningham was in Stillwater. Instead of getting a win and strolling into the rankings next week, Steve Lutz’s squad suffered its first setback of the year.
Without standout big man Parsa Fallah for most of the afternoon, the Cowboys were facing a tougher challenge than anticipated. Still, the Cowboys had been in their fair share of tight games and had come away with wins in every tight contest up to this point.
More than anything, this matchup showed that the Cowboys still have a long way to go to get to where they want to be in the Big 12 picture. Overall, it’s hard to be too concerned about the Cowboys’ direction after just one loss, but Saturday still marked the first time Lutz’s squad couldn’t come away with a win, which could be a turning point moving forward.
Meanwhile, Jacie Hoyt’s squad fell 92-70 in the second game of the doubleheader in Oklahoma City. After a fun first half saw the Cowgirls trailing by just four going into halftime, a third-quarter burst from the Sooners would end up being enough to carry them the rest of the way, but a loss to the No. 9 team in the country is far from a disaster.
In the short term, the Cowgirls’ loss simply means that they’ll be knocked out of the top 25 next week and can look forward to the rest of nonconference play before beginning their Big 12 slate. However, this game might have shown some concerning things as far as their long-term outlook goes.
After falling at St. John’s earlier this season, the Cowgirls are now sitting at 10-2 and don’t exactly have a strong resume going into Big 12 play. With this loss against the Sooners in a neutral-site setting, there could be some warranted concerns about how the Cowgirls might do against some of the top-tier teams in the Big 12, with four matchups against current top 15 teams looming in conference play.
Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.