By Mike Baldwin
Staff Writer
DES MOINES,
Iowa — How far has
Oklahoma State's women's basketball program come the past two seasons?
The No. 13 Cowgirls posted an 85-73 win over
East Tennessee State Saturday night in a women's
NCAA Tournament first-round game at
Wells Fargo Arena and coach
Kurt Budke wasn't pleased.
Far from it.
"This was one of our poorer performances in recent weeks,” Budke said. "It says a lot that we can win and advance and not even come close to playing our best basketball. If we play like that Monday night we'll be done.”
OSU, 26-7, will play the winner of Saturday's late game —
Ohio State vs. Florida State — for a berth in the Sweet 16 in New Orleans. Tipoff time for Monday's game wasn't announced until late Saturday night after the second game.
"I was disappointed with a lot of things,” Budke said. "We just didn't play the way we can play. The one thing I thought was great tonight was
Maria Cordero. I wasn't really happy with anybody else.”
Cordero scored a season-high 23 points. Point guard
Andrea Riley, who suffered a bruised left knee late in the first half but played through the injury, scored a game-high 26 points. Shaunte Smith recorded her seventh double-double (10 points, 12 rebounds).
The turning point came midway through the first half when the Cowgirls went on an 18-3 run to seize control. During the run, ETSU committed eight turnovers, including turnovers on seven consecutive possessions.
OSU led 41-29 at halftime and built the lead to 60-43 lead with 10:45 to play. The Cowgirls seemed to be in position to coast to a win.
It wasn't that easy.
ETSU, making its first appearance in the women's tournament, hit four 3-pointers over a three-minute span to claw within 67-60.
"We forced some turnovers to get control and then played pretty well early in the second half,” Budke said. "When we got it to 17 we should have taken it further. That's the biggest thing I'm disappointed in.”
Despite the sub-par performance
OSU posted its first
NCAA Tournament win since 1996, only the program's second
NCAA Tournament win the past 17 years.
The Cowgirls will try to become only the second women's team in school history to reach the Sweet 16 Monday night.
"It feels good that we advanced, but we're disappointed we didn't play better,”
Riley said. "We know Monday night it will be a whole different game. We can't play like we did tonight.”
The Cowgirls have reached new heights this season. This team is ranked higher in the national polls (No. 13) than any team in school history. It's also
OSU's highest seeded team (No. 3) in the
NCAA Tournament.
On Monday night, they'll try to tie the 1990-91 team that reached the Sweet 16 for most wins in school history.
"We didn't play our best and still won in the
NCAA,” Cordero said. "Coach was very disappointed in us. We didn't play like a
Big 12 team. But like coach told us, the good news is we have another chance to bounce back and play better.”
No one appreciates the irony of everyone being upset following an
NCAA Tournament win better than Smith, a junior forward from Putnam City North.
Smith and
Taylor Hardeman, who scored 13 points, are the only two players left that played on Budke's first team that finish 6-22 overall, 0-16 in league play.
"We have more experience this year after the way we played during conference and the
Big 12 Tournament,” Smith said. "We didn't play our best. But it feels really good to get a win. But we know we're going to be out if we don't bring our A game.”
