Cowboys' Road Woes Continue

The Oklahoma State Cowboys had the perfect opportunity Wednesday night to put an end to a 12-game losing streak. But North Texas was determined to protect The Super Pit, its home court in Denton, Texas, and the Eagles of the Sun Belt Conference held on for the 82-73 victory. The Cowboys’ record is now 3-17 in their last 20 road games since the beginning of the 2005-06 season.

Senior Marcus Dove gave a valiant effort in the losing cause as he scored a career-high 23 points (nine more than he had ever scored in any previous game for the Cowboys), while contributing seven rebounds and four steals. Freshman James Anderson finished with 16 points and six rebounds, while Anthony Brown contributed 10 points and seven rebounds.

“That’s one guy (Dove) that I thought played well, and played like a warrior,” OSU head coach Sean Sutton said. “That’s the way you want your seniors to play. He did some good things on the offensive end. I think the work he put in this past summer is paying off.”

The Cowboys fell behind early but used a 11-3 run capped by Anthony Brown’s conventional three-point play to take a 16-15 lead midway through the first half. But North Texas then took charge, going on a 17-0 run as the Cowboys went scoreless over the next four minutes.

OSU trailed 44-35 at halftime but trimmed the North Texas lead to 51-50 on Anderson’s conventional three-point play just 3:46 into the second half. But the Eagles went on a 10-0 run to pull away, and it was an uphill struggle the rest of the way.

“The performance was really bad. The first half we got down big and we had to fight uphill all game. That’s something we’ve got to learn from. We did it last year. We can’t just let teams get up on us big and then continue to fight uphill all game,” Dove said.

Sutton said, “It’s hard to play catch up on the road, and always fighting from behind. I thought at time we panicked a little bit ... and started taking a lot of three-point shots, some shots that are a little bit out of character for us.

“I wouldn’t consider this a great upset tonight. North Texas is a good team,” Sutton continued. “I thought we’d win the game, but I’m not totally shocked that we didn’t win in a situation like this. I think you’re going to see this around the country. I think there’s pretty good balance. Early in the season the most important thing about a game like this is you learn from your mistakes.”

Sutton said the play from the Cowboys’ guards has got to improve.

“We need to get better guard play to win at the level that we want to win at, and to win on the road,” he said. “We can’t have Obi (Muonelo), Terrel (Harris) and Byron (Eaton) go 7-for-25 from the field, 6-of-18 from the three-point line, and then we get two free throws total, six assists and seven turnovers. Those guys are better players than that, and they’ll play better. But they didn’t have a good night tonight, and with a young team for the first time on the road you need your veteran guards to play like they’re capable of.

Oklahoma State’s next chance to get a win on the road – not including next week’s trip to play in the Maui Invitational – will be Dec. 15 when the Cowboys make a trip to Pittsburgh to play the Panthers.