Top seeds were strewn, tossed out of the Big 12 Tournament.
No. 1 Kansas State. No. 2 Baylor. No. 5 Oklahoma. All were gone before the Cowgirls ever took the Municipal Auditorium floor.
"That just pumped us up to get ready,” OSU's Taylor Hardeman said.
Ready and able.
The No. 20-ranked Cowgirls played no part in the Big 12 Tournament upset theme, slaying Kansas 82-62 and seizing opportunity Wednesday night in Kansas City.
Moving to 24-6 overall, OSU is now the highest seed remaining in the tournament. The Cowgirls will play No. 7 Texas in an 8:30 semifinal tonight.
The Longhorns took out Baylor, 76-61.
No. 4 Texas A&M faces No. 8 Iowa State in the other semifinal at 6.
For these Cowgirls, it was their first postseason win. It was the program's first postseason win since 2003.
And for this group of Cowgirls, it was just another hurdle cleared. Now they dare to leap even higher — their first-ever Big 12 championship game berth.
"It's real exciting for our program,” said OSU coach Kurt Budke. "In three years, we've knocked down so many barriers. Never winning a road game. Never winning a South game. We just kept chopping them down.
"This was the next thing we needed to get to. We finished last year with two straight losses and two straight eliminations from tournaments. We didn't want that to happen again.”
Because of that, the Cowgirls weren't as much tuned into the upsets that have rocked this tournament, as themselves and the next barrier before them. They remembered it was the Jayhawks who knocked them out of last year's Big 12 Tournament in a first-round upset in Oklahoma City.
"We felt like, ‘We're not taking that road again this year,'” said OSU sophomore Andrea Riley, who scored a game-high 23 points.
"(The upsets) really got our attention, but it didn't bring us down, because we are the Cowgirls. We are OSU, and we don't have to worry about any other team. It's about us. We have to focus on us.”
Riley led a balanced attack that featured all five Cowgirl starters in double figures. Hardeman had 15 points and hit four 3-pointers. Maria Cordero added 14 points, Shaunte Smith 12 and Danielle Green 10.
OSU built as much as a 19-point lead in the first half, aided by a 6:34 scoreless stretch by the Jayhawks.
Kansas cut the lead to 12 at the half and worked to within eight, 49-41, in the early minutes of the second half. But the Cowgirls started the rout with a 15-2 run sparked by 3-pointers from Hardeman, Riley and Kristin Hernandez.
OSU ballooned its lead to 28, 76-48, and rolled to the finish.
KU had upset No. 6 Nebraska to move into Wednesday's quarterfinal, but the Jayhawks couldn't produce another surprise.
"We talked about that with the kids, our opportunity to be a spoiler,” said Jayhawks coach Bonnie Henrickson. "But you couldn't lose sight that they wanted revenge, both teams would be playing with a lot of emotion and energy.”
The Cowgirls, too, are playing with a purpose.
"We're very proud of the year we've had so far, but we're not done yet,” Budke said. "We don't want to be satisfied. Anytime you're satisfied, you take a step backwards.
"I don't think you saw a satisfied team tonight. I think you saw a hungry team that wanted to advance.”
