Le'Bryan Nash scores 21 as Oklahoma State holds off Tulsa

OSU BASKETBALL — Le'Bryan Nash and Keiton Page combined for 11 of the Cowboys' final 16 points as the team rallied to beat Tulsa.

BY JOHN HELSLEY Staff Writer jhelsley@opubco.com | Published: November 30, 2011 Comment on this article

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“I'm a big contributor to this team, so I just gotta play hard with these guys.”

Meanwhile, the Cowboys might have to ride out the ups and downs of their true freshman.

“We caught him on the wrong night,” said Tulsa coach Doug Wojcik. “Everyone knows Le'Bryan Nash. We've all seen him on the summer circuit. He's very skilled. Very strong.”

With Nash scoring 11 first-half points, the Cowboys led 33-23 at intermission. But they turned the ball over on their first four possessions of the second half and made just two field goals in the first 13:12, as the Golden Hurricane was surging ahead 47-41.

“That was frustrating,” Page said. “The game plan was to come out and put it on them the first five minutes of the second half. And it went just opposite. They came down and put it on us.”

But Nash and Page got going, with Philip Jurick adding a big tip-in with 1:14 showing to keep the lead at three, 56-53. OSU never trailed again, although there were some anxious moments late.

After Reger Dowell missed two free throws with :04.2 showing, TU's Scottie Haralson missed a 3-pointer at the buzzer.

“Proud of us,” said Cowboys coach Travis Ford. “I told our team, ‘This is a good win for our basketball team. We're an OK team right now. We're not very good. We're OK, at best. That's what we are.' And that's fine.

“There's steps we've got to take to get good. There's steps we've got to take to get very good. And there's steps we've got to take to be great. And I've told them what those steps need to be and when we need to achieve them.”

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