NORMAN — About the only thing that could stop Oklahoma State University sophomore Liz Donohoe was Lindsey Keller’s elbow.
Even after taking an elbow to the face, Donohoe matched her season-high with 24 points as No. 21 Oklahoma State upset No. 17 Kansas 76-59 Tuesday at Gallagher-Iba Arena.
“We hadn’t had scoring in the first conference games from our wings and we have to get production out of those people,” Oklahoma State coach Jim Littell said. “It’s no secret and it’s not meant to put pressure on them — Liz Donohoe has to play well, Toni Young has got to play well and Tiffany Bias has got to play well. Those three kids have got to deliver for us in a lot of different areas and I was glad to see our wings step up.”
Donohoe may have been the big story, scoring 17 points in the first half but it was OSU’s focus that turned what should have been an evenly matched game into a 17-point rout for Oklahoma State’s first Big 12 win.
“We let some leads get away and we just really stressed with them at each media timeout, ‘You’ve won this four minutes, now go win the next four minutes,’” Littell said. “I think it helped us to focus — play one play at a time, run one set at a time and have one defensive possession at a time.”
Littell wouldn’t say that the Cowgirls (12-2, 1-2 Big 12) won every four-minute stand, but they were pretty close. Kansas (11-3, 2-1 Big 12) made a couple of runs — trimming the OSU lead to 9 with 6:06 left in the second half, but that’s as close as the Jayhawks ever got.
“It’s a credit to Oklahoma State,” Kansas coach Bonnie Hendrickson said. “We said going into it that it was like two starving dogs after the last piece of meat on earth and they weren’t going to give it to us and they certainly didn’t. What they gave us was a punch in the mouth.”
The sophomore’s 3-point play with 16:46 left in the first half sparked Oklahoma State’s offense and from there the Cowgirls ran like a well-oiled, unstoppable machine that had it’s way with the Kansas defense en route to a 37-29 halftime lead.
“We pushed it about as much as we could,” OSU guard Tiffany Bias said. “They started getting back on us more because they were trying to stop us in transition. ... We really played together. They closed something down and something else was open. It was good for us to play all as one and we made some big plays when we needed to.”
For local news and more, subscribe to The Norman Transcript Smart Edition, or our print edition.
