Today in Stillwater the Oklahoma State Cowboys won the battle of attrition and defeated the #17 (for now) Kansas State Wildcats by a score of 76-62. In a game marred by an excessive amount of fouls the Cowboys rallied from an eight point deficit to blow past K-State for a big double digit win.
The story of the game though was the referees who were bound and determined to not let any flow or excitement enter into the contest. Worse than even simply calling a foul or two (or three) on almost every possession was their variation during the game on what was a foul or not a foul as Fran Franschilla discussed in the second half on the television broadcast.
In the first half the Oklahoma State home crowd was incensed at what they felt was some one-sided calls. In the second half after a clear push-off by Marshall Moses to get a lay-up, Jamar Samuels lost his cool and got a technical foul called on him. The ensuing free throws by Keiton Page pushed the lead to six for Cowboys and the Wildcats could never recover.
The final tally on fouls was 31 for K-State and 26 for Oklahoma State. In total, six players combined between both teams fouled out and three others finished with four fouls.
As for the secondary characters of this game, the players, Oklahoma State played good fundamental defense in the second half to get a huge win in the league opener. Kansas State was unable to get any offense from their big men throughout the game as Freddy Asprilla did not score and Wally Judge finished with just 4 points.
Kansas State rode some hot three point shooting and some unusual makes from the free throw line to put themselves in a position to possibly run away with the game at one point in the second half. Unfortunately for the Wildcats one of their frequent cold spells hit them on offense in combination with the Cowboys defense and the game got away from them quickly.
J.P Olukemi came up huge for the Cowboys as he finished with 22 points too lead all scorers in the ballgame. Three other Cowboys, Keiton Page, Ray Penn & Marshall Moses, also scored in double figures.
Jacob Pullen did his part as he scored 20 points for Kansas State and Rodney McGruder chipped in with 19 but no other Wildcat could crack double digits.
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