Oklahoma State Falls to Baylor in OT Thriller in Big 12 Tournament Semifinal

Oklahoma State couldn’t hang with the Bears for five extra minutes.

No. 21 OSU lost 84-74 to No. 17 Baylor in the semifinals of the Big 12 Tournament on Saturday in Kansas City. As the third seed in the tournament, OSU played a tightly contested game throughout but couldn’t overcome second-seeded Baylor’s overtime attack.

After Stailee Heard’s and-one layup handed OSU a one-point lead with 3:08 left in overtime, back-to-back Baylor threes pushed the Bears back up by five. A few possessions later, Baylor’s Waiata Jennings nailed a three to push the lead to seven and effectively put the game out of reach. 

Trailing by two, Jadyn Wooten’s strong drive late in the shot clock gave her an opportunity to tie the game at the line. She nailed both free throws to even the game, and after trading empty possessions, Baylor got the ball back with 30.1 seconds left with the game tied, with a buzzer-beating miss leading to overtime.

After battling back in the second half, OSU finally regained the lead with 6:23 left in the fourth on Tenin Magassa’s layup. From there, the teams would exchange baskets with lead changes coming both ways. 

While Aaronette Vonleh’s 37-point day headlined Baylor’s performance, Stailee Heard’s go-ahead and-one answered Vonleh’s two layups with under three minutes remaining. 

After OSU sputtered to end the first half, Stailee Heard’s offensive foul early in the third kept her out for most of the period. Her 15 first-half points were critical to OSU building a lead, and with her third foul forcing her to the bench, OSU’s deficit began to increase.

With the Cowgirls reeling and needing a spark, Micah Gray delivered in the third quarter. The OSU star guard began to catch fire from beyond the arc. After hitting some free throws to finally see the ball go in the hoop, Gray began to connect from deep. After OSU had trailed by nine in the final minutes of the third, Gray nailed three 3-pointers in the final two minutes of the quarter to tie the game, eventually leading to OSU taking only a two-point deficit into the fourth.

OSU had a blistering start to the semifinal matchup, scoring the first seven points of the game and leading by as much as nine in the first quarter. The Cowgirls took a seven-point lead into the second quarter but struggled to continue that success on the way to halftime.

Including a layup in the final minute of the first quarter, Baylor went on a 9-0 run to tie the game early in the second. While OSU had some responses to regain the lead, an 11-2 Baylor run helped the Bears take their first lead and take a 32-29 lead into halftime.