Box Score The Wayland Baptist Flying Queens took it to the defending national champions Thursday night, but a last opportunity slipped away from the No. 25 Queens as No. 2 Oklahoma City escaped the top-25 show down, 80-78, in Hutcherson Center.
Wayland (14-9, 9-4) trailed the Stars by as many as 17 points in the second half, but with one minute and 22 seconds left
Stephanie Afunugo hit a mid-range jumper to bring the Queens within two points.
On the defensive end of the court, Oklahoma City (18-1, 13-0) missed two jumpers and got another offensive rebound, but Ouleymatou Coulibaly was called for an offensive foul, giving WBU a chance to tie the game.
Iesha Greer got the ball at the free throw line and with a one-on-one opportunity, drove to the left side of the basket but missed a tough, contested layup.
The Queens' defense came up big once again though, forcing a miss and setting up a fast break.
Afunugo hauled in the rebound and headed down court with the ball, but hesitated on the offensive end, prompting head coach
Alesha Robertson-Ellis to call a timeout with eight seconds.
Laura Castillo, who had a game-high 25 points, inbounded the ball from the side line and made her way back to the corner where she received a pass from
Jada Riley.
Castillo was open from three, but with 23 fouls called on the Stars, the junior point guard was looking to get to the rim. Oklahoma City funneled Castillo under the basket where she tried to dump the ball off to a teammate in the lane. A host of players scrambled to the loose ball, but Riley and a couple of OCU defenders tied the ball up and a jump ball was awarded to the Queens with 1.18 seconds remaining.
Out of timeouts, Wayland ran an inbounds play but Oklahoma City defended it to a tee and forced a tough pass that the Queens couldn't handle and WBU wasn't able to get a final shot off.
Robertson-Ellis said that she would have liked to see her squad put a shot up in the final seconds of the game to give themselves a chance to win, but that she is proud of them nonetheless.
"We wanted Stephanie to take the ball (to the basket) when she had it on the break, but when she didn't I decided to go ahead and call a timeout," Robertson-Ellis said. "Our thought coming out of the timeout was that if we attacked the rim we would have had good shot to get a two or get to the free throw line because the referees were calling a lot of fouls and they're coach was screaming don't foul.
"Ideally we wanted to take the ball inside, but I think Laura should have taken the shot (in the corner). I think she understands that, but we have to have players who are willing to step up and take those big shots. I thought we had shot after shot that we could have taken, not just Laura."
Even with the loss, Robertson-Ellis took several positives away from Thursday's game with Oklahoma City, one of which was that her team didn't quit when they were down 17 points in the second half and that after their brilliant comeback they were hurt by the loss.
"I've always said that hard work always out-weights talent, and OCU is a super talented team. Our team played very hard, adjusted well and made big plays. It's so easy for teams to play Oklahoma City, get down big and just lay down, but that's not what we did.
"It's also easy to for teams to be satisfied with a close loss to OCU, but we weren't ok with the loss and that's a good sign. I'm proud of the fact that it hurt us to lose."
The Queens' comeback came to fruition because of three solid runs in the second half. Down 17 points less than four minutes into the half, Wayland strung together a 6-2, an 8-4 and an 8-0 run to get within six points, 72-66, with four minutes and 48 seconds left.
Oklahoma City hit a three and a layup within nine seconds of each other to jump back out to an 11-point advantage, but Castillo started an 8-2 run with a three-pointer and Riley ended the run with a free throw to bring WBU within three, 79-76, with two minutes to play.
The Stars made a free throw on their next possession and Afunugo hit a jumper, setting up a dramatic ending that ultimately saw OCU escape The Hutch with an 80-78 win.
Poor free throw shooting might not have been an obvious factor in the Queens' loss, but WBU made just 19 of 30 attempts (63.3%) from the charity stripe, which could be the underlining factor to Wayland's loss.
Castillo led all players with a game-high 25 points and seven assists, while Afunugo scored 20 points on 7-of-18 shooting.
LaTericka Anderson and Greer had double-doubles for the Queens with both forwards scoring 13 points and grabbing 12 and 10 rebounds, respectively.
Coulibaly led the Stars with 23 points, making 11 of her 19 shots, while Marisha Wallace gave OCU 21 points off the bench. Both Coulibaly and Wallace recorded double-doubles Thursday night.
The Stars' bench outscored Wayland reserves 37 to one, but Robertson-Ellis was excited about what she saw from her freshmen,
Nina Sato and
Jada Riley, who played a combined 30 minutes against OCU.
"It was really good for Nina and Jada to be able to see and play against a really good team like Oklahoma City," she said. "They had really good games for us and I was excited to see them out there playing so well because I know that's our future. Those two get better every day and they're going to be great players for us."
Looking forward, the Queens will recuperate both mentally and physically after a draining game and prepare for a dangerous Southwestern Christian team. The
Eagles (11-14, 7-6) played Wayland tough in the two team's opening Sooner Athletic Conference game on Dec. 4, but the Queens eventually pulled away, coming home with a 76-61 win.
"Even before tonight's game," Roberson-Ellis said, "I thought Saturday's game with Southwestern Christian was bigger of the two games, it's a must win for us. It's a scary game because they're a good team and we used a lot of legs tonight. We're going to refocus tomorrow, watch lots of film and work on our free throws so that we can make sure we take care of business Saturday."
