Box Score Lindy Waters scored 19 points and Yor Anei added 16 points and five blocks to help Oklahoma State to an 85-77 victory over West Virginia here at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Saturday afternoon.
 
The Cowboys (12-19, 5-13) shot a sizzling 56.7 percent in the first half and led by as many as 12 points before the Mountaineers battled back to tie the game at 66 with 8:59 remaining on Jermaine Haley's floater close to the basket.
 
Then, a Chase Harler air ball led to Thomas Dziagwa's runout basket and Anei scored a close one to make it 70-66. But a couple of baskets by Haley and Derek Culver turned it into a two-point game with five minutes to go.
 
Two missed free throws by Lindy Waters, a 93.1 percent free throw shooter, opened the door for West Virginia, but the Mountaineers were unable to capitalize.
 
McCabe couldn't get his shot attempt to go down leading to another Anei basket. Huggins, upset a foul wasn't called on McCabe's miss, was assessed a technical foul leading to Dziagwa's two free throws and a six-point Oklahoma State advantage with 4:14 to go.
 
"That's my fault at the end, but I just couldn't take it anymore," Huggins said on his postgame radio show. "It's my fault and I probably should have shown better restraint but I was holding it in for a long time."
 
Two Isaac Likekele free throws with 1:27 remaining pushed the margin to nine.
 
Haley answered with a 3 and following a Cameron McGriff missed free throw West Virginia could have made it a four-point game, but Culver missed a wide open layup attempt with 57 seconds to go, likely a result of Anei's five blocks.
 
Likekele was fouled by Lamont West and his two free throws put the game on ice for OSU, which swept West Virginia this year to finish ninth in the Big 12 standings.
 
Oklahoma State outscored West Virginia 9-3 over the remaining 2:59.
 
Dziagwa scored 15, McGriff had 14 and Curtis Jones added 13 for the Cowboys.
 
Culver, Haley and West had 16 each for West Virginia. Culver also matched his season high with 21 rebounds. Freshman forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. added a season-high 13 points.
 
"The difference in the game for me was their shot blocker," Huggins said. "We had probably 12 points that (Anei) took away from us."
 
Oklahoma State shot 50 percent for the game (30 of 60) and also made 11-of-24 from 3-point range for 45.8 percent.
 
West Virginia (12-19, 4-14) shot 44.6 percent overall and was 13-of-28 from 3-point distance for 46.4 percent.
 
WVU had a 40-32 edge on the glass but turned the ball over 12 times to Oklahoma State's five, four of those coming in rapid-fire succession to begin the second half. The Mountaineers had nine turnovers after intermission.

"We panicked a little bit, which is what young guys are prone to do," Huggins said. "You want to catch up right now instead of catching up a little bit at a time or from time out to time out."
 
West Virginia ended the regular season without a road victory, the first time that's happened since 1908 when the Mountaineers were 0-5 on the road that year. 
 
The 10 road defeats are the most since West Virginia dropped 10 during a 10-19 season in 1999, one year after coming off a Sweet 16 appearance. The Mountaineers are also one year removed from a Sweet 16 appearance in 2018.
 
West Virginia's 14 Big 12 losses are its most since joining the league in 2012-13, and are the most in conference play since it's 15 defeats when it was a member of the Big East in 2002.
 
Despite today's defeat, Huggins believes his young, undermanned squad is getting closer.
 
"We missed some open shots we shouldn't have missed and we missed a couple of open shots bad that led to runouts," he said.
 
With today's loss, West Virginia is locked in as the No. 10 seed in next week's Phillips 66 Big 12 Championship to be played at the Sprint Center in Kansas City. The Mountaineers will face No. 7 seed Oklahoma on Wednesday night in an opening-round game at 9 p.m. ET on ESPNU.