Anei, Likekele provide bright spots in defeat
FORT WORTH, Texas — Isaac Likekele drove into the purple paint on the scaled court of TCU's Schollmaier Arena. With a spin, he cleared space to find Yor Anei, whose layup and drawn foul ignited a pocket of Oklahoma State fans in attendance. The duo of OSU freshmen carried the Cowboys to the brink in their 70-68 loss to the Horned Frogs on Wednesday. Although J.D. Miller's basket in the final second handed the Cowboys their fifth straight conference loss, OSU's developing point guard and center provided the majority of the offense behind the Cowboys' second-half rally. Anei scored a careerhigh 20 points on 7-for-7 shooting, while Likekele, an Arlington native playing with plenty of family in attendance, added 17 points. “It's one of the kinda silver linings,” OSU coach Mike Boynton said Monday. “It's good for them because they'll have this experience moving forward for the rest of their careers." Watching film from Saturday's loss to Kansas State, one in which the Cowboys fell behind and failed to catch back up, Boynton saw a desperate OSU team. “It looked like my team was looking for help, trying to find somebody to save them from that moment when K-State was making that run,” Boynton said Monday. “And there's nobody to help us. We've gotta figure this thing out on our own.” OSU showed signs of that Wednesday. Down 46-33 with 14:55 to play, Likekele, an Arlington native with plenty of family in the arena, sparked a 7-0 run with a jumper. A layup from Desmond Bane also came with a Dziagwa foul, bringing an end to a nearly four-minutes Horned Frogs scoring drought. Instead of cratering from there, the Cowboys, with only six players used in the entire second half, went on another run. A Thomas Dziagwa 3-pointer gave OSU its first lead of the night at 49-48, but his biggest shot of the night came on a game-tying 3-pointer with 5.6 seconds left. Miller then drove the floor and managed to shoot over Anei for what was seemingly a buzzer-beater. After officials ruled there were 0.3 seconds on the clock, Lindy Waters heaved a full-court pass that Curtis Jones tipped up, but the ball never approached the rim. A back strain limited freshman forward Duncan Demuth to 58 seconds Wednesday as Boynton relied on six players for the entirety of the final 20 minutes. “It is what it is,” Boynton said. “Not here to make excuses. If it's six, if it's five, the job is to go out there and out-execute the other team.”