Missouri ropes Cowboys in Colubmia

It's one thing to beat a top-ranked school at home, but Oklahoma State found out that it's much more difficult to do so on the road.

            No. 3 Missouri (24-2, 11-2 Big 12) rode their sellout crowd's support to an 83-65 against OSU in the second meeting between the teams.

Cowboy freshman Le'Bryan Nash, who scored 27 points in the last meeting, scored only 11 points on Wednesday night. Although he finished in double-digits, Nash had only four points at half.

"(Kim) English stepped up and played defense on me real well," Nash said. "I got to give credit to him. I wasn't aggressive like I was in Stillwater."

Missouri came out hot on offense and never slowed down. The Tigers took an early 16-10 lead and extended it to a 44-22 halftime lead. The second half was more of the same, as the Cowboys could not keep up with the pace of the Missouri offense.  

"We knew after the first game they were going to respond," coach Travis Ford said. "They did that with great fashion. They played like a team capable of doing some really special things."

Missouri shot a blistering 59 percent in the first half, and cooled to 56 percent in the second. Guard Marcus Denmon scored 17 points on 6-10 shooting to pace a balanced offense that had five players score in double digits.

            "We knew (Denmon) could shoot like that," Nash said. "He got on a roll and you couldn't stop a guy like that when he's shooting like that. You can't stop the No. 3 team on the road like that." 

            On the other end of the court, the Cowboys (12-14, 5-8) offense struggled to find its rhythm, shooting 36 percent at the half and finishing at 46 percent. Senior Keiton Page scored 23, but 14 of those points came in the final five minutes.

Page said falling behind early caused the OSU offense to, at times, force bad shots to try and stop Missouri's runs. 

"When they get going and hitting their threes, you try to do anything to stop the bleeding," Page said. "I think a couple times we came down and forced some shots just trying to get some bucks and chip away the lead."

Missouri was the second top-10 team OSU has faced on the road in the past week and both games resulted in double-digit losses. Page said teams have to come in focused to upset a top school on the road, something the Cowboys did not do.  

"You got to execute the game plan," Page said. "You got to be hitting it on the offensive end and defensive end to make it a game against a team like Missouri in Missouri."