Sharane Campbell felt responsible for the outcome of Bedlam Part 1 on Jan. 14 in Stillwater. The Cowgirls won that meeting in come-from-behind fashion after Jenni Bryan drilled the game-winning 3-pointer with 28 seconds to play.

“Cried the whole way back,” Campbell said of her first trip to Gallagher-Iba Arena and the first OSU win in the series since 2008.

You see, Campbell was defending Bryan when the basket swished through the net and gave the Pokes the victory.

“Well, after that game I felt responsible for that,” Campbell said. “The person I was guarding hit the three. We went over that play, we said no threes when we came out of the huddle and my girl hit the three.”

Campbell’s memory of the end of the game was vivid and tinged with the voice of a player who wished she could have the moment back and determined to not recreate the scene again – or at least not with the same outcome for the Sooners.

“I just felt I had to come with something,” Campbell reflected. “I had to play defense, I’ve just got to do something. And I just felt the need to – I just really can’t explain it – I just felt the need to play good.”

So on Saturday, Bedlam Part 2 commenced on the floor of the Lloyd Noble Center in Norman. And Campbell played good. So good that she can now say she was a difference-maker in the 80-71 OU victory.

Campbell poured in a team-high 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting from the field and a 7-for-12 day from the stripe. She pulled down 12 rebounds for the first double-double of her young OU career. Campbell entered the game at the 12:07 mark of the first half and made her presence known early and often.

She sliced to the basket for layups, she took the ball away from OSU point guard Tiffany Bias, she dished the ball down low to Jelena Cerina for second half lay ins, she crashed the boards with ease showing a knack for being in the right place at the right time in the most unexpected situations, she sunk a 3-pointer with 6:14 on the clock to ignite the crowd of 9,154 rowdy fans.

Whitney Hand sees the role the freshmen are playing and the positive impact players like Campbell are having for the 15-6 Sooners.

“We all have seen this from day one. We’ve known they were going to have to play,” Hand said of her underclassmen teammates. “I don’t think we knew that they were going to have to really, really, really play and play well for us to do well, but I think that they’ve kind of, they’ve just morphed into what our team needs, and they’ve really done a great job of growing up quickly and not being scared.”

Coach Sherri Coale has seen a dramatic change in the woman who cried her way home on the bus ride to Stillwater and the woman who sat next to her on the podium after knocking off her Bedlam rivals.

“Her growth over the last – between the Bedlam games – exponential. I can’t even tell you,” Coale said with a shake of the head and a smile.

“It’s a personal sense of excellence that Sharane has so when you have that they’re really easy to coach and you ache for them when bad things happen,” Coale recalled the Bedlam tears, “because sometimes even when it’s not so bad, they stick daggers in their eyes and you have to kind of save them from themselves, but Sharane has been steady in her growth.

“She comes back and says it won’t happen again. Instead of wallowing in it and saying woe is me she says it won’t happen again. That makes her really fun to coach.”

It didn’t happen again. Not this day. Oklahoma stopped a streak of nine consecutive Oklahoma State Bedlam wins across all sports that dated back to 2011 spring baseball.

And Campbell can now take responsibility for the outcome of both Bedlam ballgames this season, only this time ends with smiles instead of sniffles.

Game notes:

• Oklahoma won the rebounding battle 45-36, led by Hand’s 13 rebounds (five offensive) and Campbell’s 12 boards.
• Oklahoma outscored the Pokes 42-24 in the paint, with Cerina adding 16 points on 8-of-11 shooting. Cerina, a senior center from Vrsac, Serbia, opened up with a phrase in her native tongue to start her answer to the media, to which Coale ‘translated’, “she said her teammates were fantastic,” drawing laughter from everyone, Jelena included.
• The OU bench production was double that of the Pokes’, a 36-18 edge. OSU’s point production was heavily reliant on starters Liz Donohoe and Tiffany Bias, who finished with 20 each.
• Coale was most pleased with the assist to turnover ratio in the contest, with the Sooners finishing with 21 assists, including a career-high nine from Morgan Hook, to eight turnovers. OU forced the Cowgirls into 14 turnovers in the game and the Pokes were only credited with 10 assists on 28 made baskets.
• Both teams shot the ball well overall with OU finishing the game at 43.3 percent shooting. The Cowgirls were close behind, sinking 41.8 percent of their attempts. The closely contested game had eight lead changes and was tied 11 times, with the last knotted score coming with 7:05 to play in game and the score at 59 apiece.

Last season, Brittany Chambers emerged as a rising star for the Kansas State Wildcats. She led the team in scoring, putting up 514 points. She led the Big 12 in 3-pointers made per game with 2.8 as she finished with 88 long-range swishes (of 238 attempts). She started all 32 games and came away with 84 assists and 38 steals. Her successful sophomore season led to many accolades for her work on and off the court. Chambers was a unanimous first-team all-Big 12 selection for her work on the court complimented with academic all-Big 12 honors for her work in the classroom. She was even selected to the preseason all-Big 12 team on the honorable mention list, along with fellow ‘Cat Jalana Childs.

There have been highs on the season – a full 40-minute game against Northwestern Dec. 19 resulted in a season-high 29 points. Chambers was hot from the outside, sinking 8-of-14 3-point attempts to finish with a .500 field goal percentage (9-of-18). Saturday in Stillwater, Chambers matched that benchmark of the 2011-12 campaign again, finishing with 29 points on 9-of-19 shooting and 10 rebounds.

But there have been a few lows for the junior, too.

The season started with a 12-minute, 0-for-6, 1-point performance against Dartmouth. Later in non-conference play, Chambers posted a 9-point performance versus Hofstra after struggling to a 4-of-19 night from the floor to record her second single-digit scoring effort of the year. In a home loss against Iowa State on Jan. 25, Chambers could only muster six points in 35 minutes. But she just might have turned a corner on Saturday against the Cowgirls.

“I think that I quit running around like a chicken with my head cut off finally and that was big,” Chambers remarked after the Wildcats hung on for a 67-56 win at Gallagher-Iba Arena. The victory upped K-State’s record to 14-6, 5-3 and halted a three-game losing slide after opening Big 12 play with a 4-0 mark.

“I think that it was a definite monkey on our back a little bit and I think that especially at the end – of course we had to make it dramatic – and we are really glad that we could get this win over a great team,” Chambers said. “It’s a really really big win for us and we definitely needed it. We came out and performed.”

That’s not to say Chambers hasn’t been performing all season, but not quite at the clip she maintained last year. Before the Oklahoma State game, Chambers was averaging 15.4 points a night for her team after scoring 16.1 points per game as a sophomore. She sunk 42.9% of her shots last season, but had only been able to connect on 36.7% of her attempts prior to Saturday. She’s leading the team in scoring, rebounding and minutes per game. But in five of the Wildcats’ six losses this season, it’s been when Chambers has not led the team in scoring. To say her performance is paramount to the success or failure of K-State might be a bit of a stretch, but not by much.

The Wildcats are last in the league in scoring offense and field goal percentage, putting up an average of 59.8 points per game while connecting on just 38.9% of their shot attempts. Despite the fact that they have the second-best scoring defense (54.2 ppg), their scoring margin of +5.6 is second-worst in the Big 12. K-State also struggles with a negative rebounding margin (10th in the league), and the noticeable lack of assists (10th in the league). The importance of getting Chambers open shots that translate into positive scoring opportunities will be a defining factor for the Wildcats’ season as the second half of Big 12 play begins.

“I think that we played really well as a team,” Chambers said of the win against OSU. “Something that we haven’t been doing is we set screens well and we played well together. Instead of just running around, we took our time to notice where each person was on the court and play off of each other.”

This is something that will have to continue to keep the Wildcats in their spot near the top of the conference standings. K-State’s week will be a telling one as they travel to Texas, host Baylor, and head to College Station to face off with the defending-champion Texas A&M Aggies.

And Chambers’ stat line might just be the tale of the week.

Have you ever been to a sporting event that makes you smile ear to ear after the fact remembering what you witnessed? Well, on Wednesday in Stillwater the Oklahoma State men knocked of the No. 2 Missouri Tigers. And I’m still smiling about it.

Loyal and True – Go Pokes!

Coach Gary Blair’s final appearance at Gallagher-Iba Arena, a building Blair had lost in but once before, went down to the wire for the Texas A&M Aggies.

After digging themselves into a 10-point deficit early in the second half, the defending national champions crawled back into the game one shot, one steal, one turnover at a time. A&M tied it up at 36 all with 11:54 to play with a layup by Kelsey Assarian, Blair’s “linebacker”. From that point, the game was back and forth down to the final seconds. With 44 seconds to play and the Cowgirls up by two, Oklahoma State’s own “linebacker”, Lindsey Keller, had the inbounds play bounce off her chest and give OSU their 28^th and final turnover of the night.

“When we ran the inbounds play on the press break and we threw it to Lindsey and it went off her chest and went out of bounds, I thought we were in trouble,” OSU coach Jim Littell said. “But there’s just no quit to them.”

Sydney Carter sunk a shot on the ensuing A&M possession to tie the score at 53 apiece causing that trouble the coach mentioned. But you can’t be in too much trouble when you have the wheels and ability of Tiffany Bias to speed down the court for the go-ahead basket. Carter tried to make some magic of her own after a tough shooting night, but her jumper off the left side screen missed the mark with seven seconds to play.

It was only fitting that Keller, the evening’s workhorse, closed out the game with a defensive rebound and two made free throws to give the Cowgirls the ugly – but effective – win. That’s what middle linebackers do on the hardwood – just ask Coach Blair.

“She’s physical, that’s the way the Big 12 is,” Blair said after the loss. “I wish I had one as physical as she is, like a ‘Little Country’ in there.

“It’s not what she scores on the field goals, it’s the mindset that she brings to the game, the intensity, the whatever it takes type of attitude and that’s what you’ve got to do to be able to win at this level … You’ve got to have people just hard-nosed, carry your lunch pail to work, find a way to get the job done.”

The OSU upperclassman, one of only two juniors on the team, wasn’t looking for points, necessarily – though she did make seven of her nine tries at the line – she was looking to get herself a gold star for defense.

“I’ve worked on my game to be a lot more physical because some of the girls, they’re a little bigger than me,” the 6-2 Keller remarked with a smile, “and you just have to be stronger, be solid. Defense is a big part of that and as long as you can shut people down and they don’t score – if you score two points, you win. I just feel like defense is a really big part of my game and if I can shut them down it’s a little star by my name.”

Blair was asked about his own linebacker, Assarian, who hit the deck hard with 2:14 to play and came up holding her head after a few minutes down on the court.

“She’s just like Keller. They’re middle linebackers, they just know how to play. Don’t worry about her. Don’t worry about Lindsey and just let them play. Those type of players is what the Big 12 is all about. It’s a very physical conference.”

Physical, indeed. Though OSU’s Littell might have another descriptor for his Cowgirls after the game.

“We’re interesting, I’ll say that. We’re interesting,” Littell shook his head as he continued to look at the final box score. “We turn it over 28 times and find a way to win. We can blow a 10 point lead quicker than anybody, but these kids are pretty resilient.

“We only got up 41 shots and you don’t usually win when you get up 41 shots and turn it over 28 times, but I thought we made a lot of good plays and we forced them into 26 turnovers as well. So I just thought the defense was outstanding tonight.”

That outstanding defensive effort by the Cowgirls was not only seen in the turnovers. A&M only connected on eight shots in the first half, with a 28.6% field goal percentage. Senior Sydney Carter could only muster seven points despite her 14 attempts from the field. She connected but twice in the game, and missed when it counted most. Adaora Elonu fouled out for the Aggies and was one of the contributors to the 21 trips to the line that OSU was able to take in the game. But good defense can also mean gritty – not pretty – basketball.

“For all those teams that want that little pretty ball, you’re not going to have that when A&M is playing or Oklahoma State’s playing because neither one of us are pretty teams,” Gary Blair said of the two foes in their first meeting of the last season. “We just get the job done and we play hard and we’re on the floor, we make decisions and that’s the way it should be.

“I’m going to hate not coming back to this place.”

Oklahoma State star receiver had his popcorn ready to take in the closely contested tilt. Kansas coach Bonnie Hendrickson called the Big 12 a “one-possession league” after her team hung on to hand the Cowgirls their first home loss of the season. She wasn’t really kidding.

Positions #2 through #5 in the league in offensive scoring are separated by 3.5 points, or about a possession. Similarly, #6 through #10 in scoring range from 55.1 to 60.4 points per night, or about two possessions. On this night in GIA, two possessions was all it took to fend off the Cowgirls.

Life is different on the road. Just ask Sherri Coale.

On Saturday after their shortest road trip of the season, Coale’s agitation at losing to the Cowgirls was more than evident when addressing the media. She fielded a question about taking this loss harder than others this season, and she was quick to ask when anyone in the room had even seen an OU defeat in person. Because, really, there was only one previous loss this season in the state of Oklahoma.

“Have you seen us after any of our other losses?” Coale responded. “I’m just curious, because I think one was in Nashville, one was in Fresno … so… what are you comparing it to? We want to win every game we play and we’re not ok with losing. Ever. We’ll be alright. We’ll show up on Tuesday and play Kansas State, I promise you.”

She has a point there.

Oklahoma is 10-5 thus far in the season. Of the Sooners’ losses, four of the five have come on the road. They’ve lost in Nashville, Fresno, College Station and Stillwater. Their lone road win was at New Mexico in the second game of the season., a 58-56 squeaker. Adding in the sole home loss to Ohio State, OU averaged 63.2 points in their defeats. This same squad averaged 84.4 points per game in their five home wins.

“Being on the road is definitely different than being at Lloyd Noble. When you have 10,000 fans who are cheering for you and it’s a nice, comfortable, safe environment,” Coale said about OU’s home base. [For the record, she wildly exaggerated the early season attendance numbers as the Sooners are averaging 6,140 fans in their six home games.]

“When you’re on the road and no one is cheering for you, it’s a different environment. It’s a different environment to get up at 7:30 and get on a bus and go to a game. It’s different to play at 11 o’clock in the morning. There are all kinds of things that are different.”

The Sooners will have more “different” to deal with tonight when the team tips off at 7 p.m. CT in the Little Apple of Manhattan, Kansas to face upstart Kansas State. The 23rd-ranked Wildcats share the conference top spot with the undefeated Baylor Bears at the only two Big 12 teams to start the year 4-0.K-State is 13-3 overall with early-season losses to non-conference opponents Hofstra, Purdue and UNLV.

Incidentally, the Wildcats were picked ninth out of 10 teams in the Big 12 during the preseason coaches poll. Their low preseason perception came despite the fact that K-State finished the 2011 season fourth in the league, and the team returned core components in senior leaders Brittney Chambers and Jalana Childs, coupled with senior Tasha Dickey, a transfer from Arizona.

OU appears to be sorely missing the leadership and skills of the phenomenal Danielle Robinson on the court, but will have history on their side. The Sooners have won the last eight games against K-State including last season’s 53-45 affair. However, history hasn’t been kind to OU this week, as they had beaten Oklahoma State eight times in a row before falling on Saturday 66-63.

Despite the surprise from some local media members about the successes and failures of this year’s OU team, Coale is very secure in knowing this is a rebuilding time for the Sooners.

“We’re a work in progress. That is not a secret to anyone on the planet,” Coale said of her team. “We are learning and growing and figuring things out, and it’s not going to always be like this. We’ll just get back to work tomorrow and get ready for Kansas State on Tuesday night.

“And the sky has not fallen.”

But for the Bryans, Bedlam goes far beyond fandom.

Rick Bryan was a big-time college footballer at the University of Oklahoma in the 80s, a time of plenty for the crimson and cream.

In fact, from 1977 to 1991 encompassing the years Rick was at OU the rivalry was rather lopsided. So lopsided that you’d have to call it one-sided, as the Sooners won all of their football meetings with the Pokes. Along with team success, Rick was blessed with individual success as a two-time all-American for OU. He was the ninth pick of the 1984 NFL draft and played nine seasons with the Atlanta Falcons.

Rick passed away in July 2009, right before the youngest in the family was entering her senior year of high school in the small town of Coweta, Okla. He wanted nothing more than his daughter to follow in the family footsteps and attend college where not only he attended, but also where his brothers Mitch and Steve played football, too. But that wasn’t in the cards for Jenni.

Instead, she opted to play basketball for Oklahoma State.

“OU/OSU – it’s always been [a rivalry],” Bryan said after Saturday’s Bedlam win. “It’s big in my family, and my dad played at OU, and he wanted me to go to OU. I didn’t get the opportunity, and I came to OSU and it’s just a challenge,” Bryan continued, “and I like playing in the challenge.”

On Saturday, she did more than play in the challenge, she overcame the challenge in monumental style. Bryan didn’t log even a second of playing time in the first half of the game. OU led 28-23 at the break and Jenni watched and waited from the bench until coach Jim Littell called her number.

Oklahoma State dug themselves into a hole early in the contest, and their 8-7 lead three and a half minutes into the game was their last until the final seconds. OSU was down by as many as 11 points nine minutes into the second half, but the Sooners couldn’t slam the door on their rivals.

Littell finally called Bryan’s number 11 with 11:45 to play in the game. She took the court for the first time in over 100 minutes of game action after watching both the Texas and Baylor games from the sidelines.

In the second half, Bryan logged 11 minutes, scored 10 points and pulled down five rebounds. She was 3-for-4 from the field, sinking both of her 3-point attempts. One of those triples came with 28 ticks on the clock and the Cowgirls down 63-62 to their rivals.

With 2:27 to play, a pair of OU free throws had the margin at 63-56 in favor of the crimson-clad. After two successful trips to the line for the Cowgirls by Bryan and Tiffany Bias, the lead for the Sooners dwindled to three. With 73 seconds to play, Bias sliced in for a layup and forced an OU timeout with the visitors up by a point. The ensuing Sooner possession was thwarted when Bias swatted away an Aaryn Ellenberg jumper and the Cowgirls scooped up the defensive rebound. Then, it was time for Littell to hit the drawing board in the huddle.

“We called a chase look and … that gives us three or four options where Tiff comes off the high ball screen, and we had Lindsey Keller on a pick and pop going to the left side, and we had Jenni on the right wing, and if she was covered we could have thrown it inside,” Littell explained. “So the kids ran what was drawn up to perfection.”

Seven seconds into the possession, Jenni on the right wing received a pass from Bias and went to work drilling a three and giving the Cowgirls the go-ahead basket. The OSU defense held serve to finish out the game, capping off the contest with their 11^th block of the night on a desperation three at the buzzer.

Coach Littell praised the “extreme toughness” of the sophomore who sat sheepishly to his left. He talked about the importance that Bedlam has for Bryan and her ability to step in and step up when she’s facing the Sooners.

“That’s what makes me a good player is my toughness,” Bryan said. “I’m not blessed with a good shot or blessed with this or that, it’s just if I go out there and work hard I think I can achieve what I want.”

Jenni Bryan picked up right where her father left off so many years ago – winning Bedlam. But this time on the hardwood rather than the gridiron. And this time the victors were dressed in orange, not crimson. And her shot made this game one for the ages.

Boxscore | Game thread | Photos (on freelantzsports.com)

Oh my. I’m still a little tingly all over when I think about the game, the comeback, the ridiculous ending at Gallagher-Iba Arena today. Here are a few shots from the day, courtesy of my impromptu photographer du jour, Lynn Jacobsen.

With 1.5 seconds remaining, Lubbock Christian’s Douglas Williams released a 3-pointer in the corner to break a 59-all tie as time expired as the visitors took both ends of the double-header from OCU at Abe Lemons Arena.

Despite nearly identical offensive shooting numbers, the Chaps capitalized on a stingy defensive effort that resulted in 21 OCU turnovers. These miscues by the Stars led to 22 points and played a decisive role in the home defeat at the hands of Lubbock Christian. LCU’s Rashad Sample played a complete game and he finished as the leading scorer of the night, with 23 points and four steals.

The Stars have a short turnaround time to shake of the last-second loss as Wayland Baptist comes calling on Saturday afternoon.

The top-ranked Oklahoma City University Stars had their perfect season and 14-game win streak halted by the No. 12 Lady Chaps on Thursday night at Abe Lemons Arena.

Lubbock Christian shot a sweltering 57.8 percent from the field for the night, including a perfect 13-of-13 from the line in the first half. The 8-point halftime advantage grew to as many as 25 in the second half as the Stars were icy on offense to finish the 88-66 game. The practically wire-to-wire win for the Lady Chaps was sparked by five double-digit scorers including a 15-point, 12-rebound night by center Kelsey Canavan.

Only one unbeaten remains in the NAIA Top 25 – neighbors to the not-so-distant north, Langston. OCU looks to rebound from the loss on Saturday with a home contest against Wayland Baptist.