Oklahoma State basketball: Cowboys prep for Texas with Wiffle ball

That had coach Travis Ford's attention.

“I was a little concerned coming into this game,” Ford said after Oklahoma State rolled to a 72-59 win over the Longhorns. “We've got a lot of respect for Texas and coach (Rick) Barnes, they've won a lot of games here this year and been in so many tight games. We've been through some mentally draining games, as well as physical.

“But we did some things the last couple days to try and get our guys' minds off those other games, and just relax and have a good time and enjoy this journey, rather than think about all those close games.”

Ford's approach?

“We played Wiffle ball on Thursday,” he said. “That's what we did. Kind of surprised them.”

Surprise wasn't all.

“Some of the guys had no clue on how to even hold a bat,” Ford said. “I'm not kidding you. They had no idea.

“We just did anything to get our guys' minds off the prior games.”

COWBOYS FOCUSED ON THE ARC

For all the good numbers associated with OSU's surge to a 17-5 mark, one stat was disturbing Ford: his team's 3-point field goal percentage defense, which at 39.0 percent in conference play, ranked last.