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Oklahoma State dismantles Texas-San Antonio

Dec 31, 2006 - 7:24 AM STILLWATER, Oklahoma (Ticker) -- Oklahoma State took advantage of a breather in its schedule.

JamesOn Curry scored 24 points to lead No. 14 Oklahoma State to an 84-47 romp over Texas-San Antonio.

Coming off a loss at Tennessee and a double-overtime victory over Pittsburgh, the Cowboys (13-1) put away this one by scoring the final 10 points of the first half for a 42-24 lead.

Oklahoma State completed a 16-0 run with the first six points of the second half and quickly extended the lead to 56-30 on a 3-pointer by Curry with 14 1/2 minutes left.

One thing that I felt was critical for us to do was to control the pace of the game," Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton said. "I thought that they would prefer to play a more methodical game and at about the eight-minute mark in the first half we were able to get the pace going faster. That is one of the reasons that we pressed more tonight that we had all season. We wanted to keep it from being a grind-out, half-court game.

"Another thing that I thought was critical is that we rebound the basketball. I think that we built off of the momentum coming off the game against Pittsburgh the other night and we did a good job on the boards."

Kenny Cooper and Terrel Harris scored 15 points apiece while Mario Boggan contributed 13 and 11 rebounds, helping the Cowboys shoot 55 percent (32-of-58) from the floor and dominate the backboards, 34-17.

Sutton has been happy with the play of Cooper. The sophomore scored nine of his 15 points in the opening 20 minutes and hit 4-of-5 shots.

I feel like Kenny has put together three consecutive games where he has played extremely well," Sutton said. "He is playing with a lot of confidence and a tough physical mind-set. He is attacking the basket and doing a great job rebounding the ball. There is no question that he is a big part of what we are trying accomplish."

Melvin Smith scored 16 points to lead Texas-San Antonio (4-9), which remained winless in six road games this season and fell to 6-31 all-time against teams from the Big 12 Conference.