Women's Basketball Unable to Keep up with No. 14/13 Oklahoma State

Harvard coach Kathy Delaney-Smith was not left with much to say.

"We did not play well," Delaney-Smith said. "You can't play the 14th [best] team in the country and not play well."

No. 14/13 Oklahoma State (10-0) rolled over the Crimson women's basketball team, 92-62, in the first round of the Surf 'N Slam Classic at San Diego State's Viejas Arena on Friday night. Harvard (7-4) now faces its first two-game losing streak of the season.

The Crimson held a 7-5 lead three minutes into the game, at which point the Cowgirls took off, going on a 12-0 run and never looking back. Harvard, meanwhile, struggled to find the hoop, mustering only one field goal on its first 11 attempts.

Oklahoma State led the Crimson, 42-31, after the first half.

"We were down by only 11 at halftime and we were playing very poorly in my opinion," Delaney-Smith said. "I thought that if we could just play a little better like I felt we were capable of, we could close the gap, but we just started the second half horribly and dug a deeper hole."

The Cowgirls enjoyed another 12-0 run early in the second to jump out to a 61-39 advantage. Junior guard Tiffany Bias and sophomore forward Liz Donohoe led the scoring drive for Oklahoma State with 24 and 18 points, respectively. Teammates Toni Young and Brittney Martin each recorded double-doubles for the Cowgirls.

“They’re a very good team obviously, but we did some things that we could have prevented, that deepened and widened the lead,” said sophomore Harvard forward Temi Fagbenle.

As the game slipped away from Fagbenle’s squad, Oklahoma State out-rebounded the Crimson, 31-11, in the second period. On the night, the Cowgirls outscored Harvard 44-24 in the paint and 26-4 on fast break opportunities.

“We were forewarned and thought we were ready to play a little transition defense and keep them off the boards, and we couldn't have been worse,” Delaney-Smith said. “We couldn't have been more miserable, failing to do both of those things. That was the game.”

One of the bright spots for the Crimson, though, was Fagbenle, who recorded her third double-double of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds.

"[Fagbenle] played pretty well," Delaney-Smith said. "She played a good game. She fought till the end."

The British Olympian’s last two double-doubles have come in Harvard’s last two losses.

“I really don’t think it’s that important,” Fagbenle said of her recent individual performances. “Especially when you come out with a loss.”

Junior guard Christine Clark was the only other Crimson scorer to break into double-digits with 15 points. Senior forward and native San Diegan Victoria Lippert, who had averaged 16 points per game over Harvard’s last four contests, was held to a single trey in six attempts from the field.

The Crimson had not conceded more than 92 points in a game since a 101-80 loss at Dayton in 2010 and had not experienced a 30-point margin of defeat since last season’s 74-44 loss at Princeton. Oklahoma State has now won nine of its last 10 games by 30 or more points.

“[This game] was definitely not characteristic of us,” Fagbenle said. “We didn’t play like we know how to play at all. It just wasn’t us tonight. I don’t know why that was, but we did not play like we know how to play. And if we did, I think the outcome would have been very different.”

Contrastingly, Harvard’s first three losses of the season were relatively close affairs. Delaney-Smith had seen positives in the team’s tight losses to the strong Michigan and Boston University programs. Friday night, there were no moral victories.

“In some of the other losses there were some good things,” Delaney-Smith said. “There was nothing really good about this game.”

The Crimson will now face Southern Methodist University (8-4) in the Surf ‘N Slam Classic consolation final on Sunday. The Mustangs lost to San Diego State, 88-72, earlier Friday afternoon. Delaney-Smith expects her players to make adjustments for Sunday.

“They have to figure it out because it was a no-show by too many people,” Delaney-Smith said. “I don't know that we could have prepared them any differently. There has to be more fight. There, there has to be more pride.”

—Staff writer Michael D. Ledecky can be reached at mledecky@college.harvard.edu.