Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowgirl Basketball Travels West For Seattle Times Classic
November 26, 2003 | Cowgirl Basketball
OSU has participated once in the tournament's 16-year history, winning the event in 1999. The Cowgirls defeated Portland, 88-76, in the first round before beating the Huskies in the title game. OSU's Tari Cummings earned MVP honors and was joined by fellow Cowgirl Jennifer Crow on the all-tournament team.
SCOUTING THE FIELD Yale enters its first-round matchup with the Cowgirls in search of its first win after opening the season with a 67-63 loss against Quinnipiac last Friday and a 78-65 setback to Vermont on Tuesday. Friday's meeting will be the first between OSU and the Bulldogs.
Gonzaga brings a 1-2 mark into the tournament after a 73-57 loss against Oregon on Tuesday. The Bulldogs opened the season with a 66-54 loss against Houston in the Hawkeye Challenge in Iowa City before emerging victorious in the consolation game with a 65-59 win over Butler. OSU and Gonzaga have never met on the hardwood.
Tournament-host Washington will bring a 2-0 mark into the weekend after posting wins over Maine (82-70) and Lipscomb (78-52) at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort Classic in Hawaii.
WHAT 2 WATCH 4 The Cowgirls will look to remain perfect against schools from the Ivy League when they take on Yale with their lone contest against the league being a 74-55 win against Brown in 2001 ... OSU is 3-1 all-time against members of the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga) with a 1-1 mark against Pepperdine and a 2-0 ledger versus Portland ... a victory against either Gonzaga or Washington would be OSU's first non-conference road win (second overall) under head coach Julie Goodenough ... Trisha Skibbe enters the weekend five blocked shots away from the second spot on the school's all-time chart.
LAST TIME OUT OSU suffered its first road defeat of the season, losing 54-49 at Wichita State in front of 1,842 fans at Charles Koch Arena on Tuesday night. The Cowgirls, who were hindered by 23 turnovers in the game and trailed by as many as 12 points in the first half, used a 12-0 run to knot the score at 25 apiece after a pair of free throws by Nina Stone. The junior guard finished the stanza with 10 points and a team-high 19 points for the game. The Shockers (1-1) were held scoreless for more than six minutes during the Cowgirls' scoring stretch until April Banks went the length of the floor in 4.1 seconds before draining a three-point basket at the buzzer to send WSU into the intermission up 28-25. In the second half, OSU tied the contest at 36-36 on a layup by junior Trisha Skibbe and took the lead on a basket by freshman Destanie Sykes and built the margin to as many as four, taking advantage of a five-minute scoring drought by the Shockers.
