Big 12 Tournament: Oklahoma State falls to Kansas State

The unsavory smell involved a season-worst 30.5 percent shooting night and 14 turnovers and little energy.

“We didn't play so good,” said Cowboys captain Markel Brown, who failed to score in the first half and finished with just eight points. “We struggled from the start.”

And kept struggling.

Clearly, No. 14 Oklahoma State must regroup before next week's NCAA Tournament.

And maybe not just from this disappointing loss, but maybe physically, too.

The Cowboys, now 24-8, wouldn't bite on any talk of being tired, although the buzz around the program in recent days — and their play — suggested it to be a factor.

The Wildcats said they sensed it and seized on it.

“We saw they were tired by the end of the first half,” said K-State point guard Angel Rodriguez. “So the beauty of our team is we're deep and a lot of people can play for us and help us, and that's what we did.

“We rotated our line and we got out in transition. And pretty much every time we went into transition, something positive happened. So that was the biggest key.”

The Wildcats pushed the ball late in the first half to emerge from their own shooting struggles, going from 17-12 down into the lead at 28-23 by halftime. In the second half, they extended the lead to as much as 15 and never really seemed threatened by OSU's occasional rallies.

OSU's fade actually started late Thursday night, when the Cowboys blew a 20-point lead against Baylor and found themselves hanging on at the final buzzer.