Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Jalen Bridges scored a career-high 22 points and Gabe Osabuohien came off the bench to contribute 12 points and eight rebounds to lead West Virginia to a 70-60 victory over Oklahoma State Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
 
Bridges was 10 of 10 from the free throw line.
 
Bridges and Osabuohien's outstanding first half play helped the Mountaineers to 34-23 halftime lead. Bridges tallied 10 and Osabuohien had eight in the first half as the Cowboys concentrated on stopping leading scorers Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil.
 
Sherman finished with 13 and McNeil added 12 to give the Mountaineers four double figure scorers since beating Pitt 74-59 at the Coliseum earlier this year.
 
"I thought defensively we played probably as well as we've played all year," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who is now seven victories shy of tying Jim Calhoun for third all-time in NCAA Division I wins with 920.
 
West Virginia (13-2, 2-1) was 21 of 22 from the free throw line - the Mountaineers' best free throw shooting performance since making 23 of 24 against Kansas State on Feb. 3, 2018 in Morgantown.
 
When the Mountaineers got up by 16 points early in the second half, Oklahoma State (8-6, 1-2) used full-court pressure to get back into the game. The Cowboys scored nine straight points during a three-minute stretch to make it a seven-point game.
 
Malik Curry finally ended a the drought with a free throw, and then Osabuohien takes the ball away from Avery Anderson III and later feeds Bridges for a pretty back-door dunk to push the Mountaineers' lead back to 11. 
 
Four more from Bridges got the lead to 15 and the margin swelled to 18 on Sherman's jumper with 4:07 to go.
 
The Cowboys turned the ball over 17 times and shot just 39.7% from the floor (23 of 58). West Virginia actually shot worse at 37.3% (22 of 59).
 
"That's a heck of a win for us in that we didn't really shoot the ball all that well," Huggins noted. "Our three guys who consistently make shots (Sherman, McNeil and Bridges) didn't make shots the way they consistently make them so that's a big win for us."
 
Bryce Williams led Oklahoma State with 12 and Isaac Likekele added 11.
 
Osabuohien had a +19 performance on the stat sheet with a team-best eight boards, two steals and assist and a block. He also took more charges, adding to the team-leading 13 he had coming into tonight's game. He also made all four of his free throw attempts, which now makes him 12 of 34 at the line for the season.
 
Huggins, however, was more preoccupied with his four fouls.
 
"He's got to stop fouling," Huggins said. "He had four fouls and what happens if we need him at the end of the game?"
 
The Cowboys have enjoyed considerable success in the Coliseum winning six of nine meetings before tonight's loss.
 
West Virginia nearly held its opponent to less than 60 points for the 11^th time this season. Oklahoma State came into tonight's content averaging 73.2 points per game.
 
"We did everything we needed to except finish the game," Huggins said. "We were kind of careless with the ball and took some bad shots and made some bad passes at the end. I wanted to feel good about this, because we're not going to have an 18-point lead a lot this year. We've just got to do a better job taking care of the ball.
 
"Dribbling in front of your guy just to show him you can dribble is not good," Huggins added. "Other than that, I thought for the most part we played well."
 
With top-ranked Baylor losing tonight at Texas Tech, all 10 teams in the Big 12 now have at least one loss.
 
West Virginia travels to 2-1 Kansas on Saturday afternoon to play a 2 p.m. game that will be televised nationally on CBS. The ninth-ranked Jayhawks, now 13-2 overall, got a basket from Dajuan Harris with eight seconds left to knock off 15^th-ranked Iowa State 62-61 earlier tonight.
 
"There are a whole lot of folks with one loss now," Huggins said.
 
West Virginia is still searching for its first-ever victory Allen Fieldhouse.