Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowboys Win Big 12 Basketball Championship
March 07, 2004 | Cowboy Basketball
STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) -- Eddie Sutton finally got a chance to cut down the nets at his alma mater.
Oklahoma State's venerable coach eagerly climbed up the ladder with scissors and snipped at the final strand of net. He kissed the frayed piece of nylon, held it aloft for the roaring crowd, then stuffed it in his pocket.
Sutton's 17-year wait -- four as a player, 13 as a coach -- was finally over.
``This is why I stay in coaching,'' the 67-year-old Sutton said after the eighth-ranked Cowboys claimed sole possession of the Big 12 title with a 70-41 victory over Texas A&M on Saturday.
``It was a very special day.''
John Lucas scored 20 points and Joey Graham had 14, helping the Cowboys (24-3, 14-2) clinch their first outright conference championship since 1964-65 in the former Big Eight. Oklahoma State also set a school record for most conference wins and finished 15-0 at home.
It was an anticlimatic finish to the regular season for the Cowboys, who earned a share of the league title with a 76-67 win over Texas on Monday night.
This matchup between the Big 12's best team and its worst was ugly from the start.
Texas A&M (7-19, 0-16) missed eight of its first nine shots, while Oklahoma State also got off to a sluggish start _ prompting Sutton to call a timeout two minutes into the game.
The Cowboys went on a 15-3 run midway through the first half, though, and essentially turned the game into a coronation ceremony from there.
``The celebration was terrific,'' said Tony Allen, who finished with 10 points and six rebounds. ``That's something that you can look back on later in life and know that you were a part of something.''
The Aggies became only the second team in the eight-year history of the Big 12 to go winless in league play. Baylor did it in 1999.
The six-year Melvin Watkins era at A&M will probably last only one more game, a first-round matchup against the sixth-seeded team in the Big 12 tournament. The Aggies haven't won a game in the postseason since the now-defunct Southwestern Conference Classic in 1994.
For this game, at least, the Aggies succeeded in quieting the normally raucous Gallagher-Iba Arena crowd on a day when there was plenty to celebrate.
A&M rarely attempted a shot with more than five seconds on the shot clock, effectively slowing down the pace of the game and snuffing out any bit of enthusiasm from the fans.
``We thought it slowed them down, slowed the pace of the game down,'' Watkins said. ``That's what we wanted to try and do with it being senior day and knowing what they were playing for.''
The Cowboys finally seemed to snap out of their funk late in the first half when Lucas lofted a ball high to Tony Allen for a monstrous one-handed dunk, giving Oklahoma State a 17-9 lead.
Even a few Aggies stared up at the Jumbotron during a timeout to catch a glimpse of the dunk.
Texas A&M never got any closer the rest of the game.
Nick Anderson and Acie Law led the Aggies with 10 points each.
Before the game, Oklahoma State seniors Allen, Janavor Weatherspoon and Jason Miller were honored with a reel of highlights on the Jumbotron and standing ovations from the crowd.
Sutton also got some applause when he was presented with the Naismith Good Sportsmanship Award, an 80-pound, 3{-foot trophy with a little bronze sculpture of basketball inventor James Naismith on the top.
But it was the celebration afterward left the typically sour-faced Sutton all smiles.
Sutton, who played at Oklahoma State from 1956-58, finally got to celebrate a championship in front of the Cowboys' orange-clad crowd.
When Sutton returned to Stillwater as a coach in 1991, Oklahoma State went on to share the Big Eight title with Kansas _ a significant accomplishment at a school that hadn't won a championship of any sort in almost a decade.
Still, the celebration that year was muted because the regular-season finale came at Iowa State, a 68-67 loss.
It didn't seem likely that this team _ picked fifth in the Big 12 in preseason media and coaches' polls _ would be the one to send Sutton to the top of the ladder at Gallagher-Iba.
``We've won a lot of championships during the years I've coached,'' Sutton said ,``but I'm not sure that any one of those teams is more special than this one because this team has come so far. They just continue to amaze me.''
Lucas, who never won a championship in high school or in two years at Baylor, is already looking forward to the next opportunity to cut down the nets.
``I know I want to keep doing it again and again,'' Lucas said. ``I love the feeling.''
