The No. 19 Oklahoma State Cowgirls were seeking their fourth win of the season against the Tulsa Golden Hurricane. Instead, Tulsa made program history.

Tulsa’s (2-1) 64-62 overtime win over the Cowgirls (3-1) marked the first time the Golden Hurricane beat a ranked team. Before the win, Tulsa was 0-50 against ranked opponents.

Tulsa made their final three field goal attempts but did not make a shot in the final 3:25 in overtime, which meant they had to withstand a Cowgirls comeback. OSU had a chance to tie the game and send it to double overtime but guard Liv McGill’s entry pass under the basket to center Audi Crooks was too low and batted away by a Tulsa defender, which ran out the clock.

Here are three takeaways from Oklahoma State’s first loss of the season.

When the Offense Falters

In Oklahoma State’s first three games of the season the scoring clicked. All three games were at home. But, in the Cowgirls’ first road game of the season the offense was just off.

OSU shot 33% from the floor and only 17% from the 3-point line (4-of-23). The free throw line worked for the Cowgirls, going 12-for-13. But OSU didn’t get there enough for it to make a difference.

Off nights are going to happen offensively. This being the season’s first road game may have made a difference. But only two players hit double figures — Crooks scored 17 points and McGill scored 13 points. Stailee Heard only scored eight points but had a game-high 15 rebounds.

But the other five players scored 24 points. The other two starters — Yuting Deng and Nene Ndiaye — only scored 11 points. The drop in that complementary offense on Thursday played a role. But the Cowgirls’ overall shooting game proved to by the biggest issue offensively.

The Foul Trouble

Another issue was foul trouble. The Cowgirls were called for 21 fouls and back-up point guard LA Sneed fouled out. Crooks had four fouls and was limited to 29 minutes. Deng also had four fouls and only played 25 minutes. Heard had three fouls but played 43 minutes. Her experience playing with multiple fouls played a role in avoiding that fourth foul.

The foul trouble messed with rotations offensively, took good players off the floor defensively and only allowed OSU to lead the game for 9:43. It helped equalize the game with a Tulsa team that has been a good team in the American for the past three seasons and only needed a small opening to stay in striking distance of the Cowgirls.

The Rotations

Oklahoma State hadn’t played a close game in its first three contests. One thing that the matchup with Tulsa did was show who head coach Jacie Hoyt sees as her go-to players off the bench early in the season.

In previous games, she used her bench liberally. With this game, she called on just three players off the bench — Sneed, guard Callin Hake and guard Talexa Weeter.

Sneed is McGill’s backup at point guard. Hake can work at the point, work at the off-guard and is a solid defender. Weeter is a player that can provide instant offense based on her history but only provided four points on Thursday.

Hoyt didn’t use Ellie Brueggemann, a solid 3-point shooter, or Zoe Canfield, who is still feeling her way back from a season-ending injury last year. I was curious to see what Hoyt would do with Crooks not on the floor and she went small, part of the reason Heard’s rebounding totals were significant in this contest.

With South Dakota State coming up on Sunday, another quality mid-major team, it will be interesting to see if Hoyt restructures the rotations in that game.