Cowboys Squeak Past DePaul 60-56

Thursday, November 25

Anaheim, CA

3:30 PM

Oklahoma State University

DePaul

November 25, 2010 | Cowboy Basketball

Nov. 25, 2010

Final Stats | AP Photo Gallery

Anaheim, Calif. -- Marshall Moses scored a career-high 27 points and Oklahoma State held off a late second-half surge as the Cowboys defeated DePaul 60-56 here Thursday afternoon in the first round of the 76 Classic. OSU held the Blue Demons to just 33.3 percent shooting from the floor, but the Cowboys committed 25 turnovers and kept DePaul in the game.

"It wasn't pretty at either end," said OSU head coach Travis Ford. "Coach (Oliver) Purnell has a young team, trying to learn a new style, and the scrapped and played their hearts out. I thought we also scrapped. We had one player (Marshall Moses) that put us over the top. He scored when he had to score and he rebounded pretty well. When neither team is scoring a lot, you need to control the glass. We wanted to learn about ourselves in this tournament. This is a good learning lesson for us."

Oklahoma State led by as many as eight in the first half when a layup by Jean-Paul Olukemi put the Pokes up 21-13 with six minutes to go before intermission. However, DePaul went on a 14-6 run and with a pair of free throws by Brandon Young, tied the game 27-27 at halftime.

The Cowboys went on an 8-2 run to start the second half, scoring all eight points in the paint. The Blue Demons kept clawing back, tying the game at 45-45 with just under 10 minutes to play. The margin never got bigger than two points for either team until a layup by Moses with just over a minute to go put OSU ahead 56-52. A pair of free throws by Moses with five seconds remaining iced the game for OSU.

"Marshall brought a tremendous amount of energy, and I loved how he scored in different ways tonight," Ford said. "Off offensive rebounds, from the free-throw line, 15 footers. He pretty much had a good all-around game tonight."

OSU's senior forward was 11-of-14 from the floor and also had nine rebounds. Keiton Page was just 2-of-11 from the field but did score 11 points. Darrell Williams had nine points and eight boards.

Oklahoma State (4-0) will face Virginia Tech (3-1) on Friday at 11:30 am PT (1:30 pm CT) in the semifinals of the 76 Classic. That game will be televised on ESPN.