Oklahoma State’s women’s basketball program got more than a pat on the back this week. It got a full-on confirmation that the offseason overhaul worked.
The Cowgirls enter the year looking almost nothing like last season’s team. Only one player is back from that group, veteran guard Stailee Heard, while the rest of the roster has been rebuilt through transfers and freshmen. Jacie Hoyt and her staff landed the No. 1 transfer class in the country, a haul headlined by center Audi Crooks and guard Liv McGill.
That work paid off Thursday when the Big 12 coaches put Oklahoma State at the top of the preseason poll for the first time under Hoyt. It’s also the first time the Cowgirls have ever been picked as the league favorite, and they’re the sixth different team to earn that distinction in six years.
The vote was tight from top to bottom. Four teams picked up at least one first-place vote, including TCU, last season’s regular-season champion, and West Virginia, the conference tournament winner.
Oklahoma State finished with seven first-place votes and 215 points, just ahead of TCU’s six first-place votes and 212 points. Baylor landed third with two first-place votes and 199 points, while West Virginia was fourth with one first-place vote and 186 points.
That kind of margin says plenty: the race should be a dogfight. It also says the coaches clearly believe Hoyt and her staff changed the trajectory of the program in one offseason.
The Cowgirls haven’t won a regular-season or conference tournament title since 1991 in the Big Eight Conference.
Crooks and McGill were the big reasons Oklahoma State’s transfer class drew so much attention. Coaches around the league know Crooks well after her three seasons at Iowa State before the move to Stillwater, and McGill arrives after one season at Florida.
Crooks was named preseason player of the year for the second straight season, and she became the first Oklahoma State player ever to win the award. Last year, she ranked second nationally in scoring at 25.8 points per game. She also reached 2,000 career points faster than any Big 12 player in history, getting there in 89 games.
Both Crooks and McGill made the preseason first team. McGill also picked up preseason newcomer of the year honors after earning All-SEC first-team recognition and honorable mention All-America status last season. She shot 43% from the field and averaged more than 20 points per game.
It has been more than a decade since Oklahoma State had a preseason newcomer of the year. Marisha Wallace was the last, doing it for the 2013-14 season.
The Cowgirls’ rising profile also got a boost off the court. Sports Business Journal reported Thursday that CBS Sports has reached a sub-license agreement with ESPN for eight women’s basketball games, marking the first time the Big 12 has placed women’s games on CBS. The league now has three national TV partners for women’s basketball.
The specific games weren’t announced, but they are expected to be revealed closer to the league’s media days on Oct. 20-21 in Kansas City. With Oklahoma State’s profile where it is now, there’s a strong chance the Cowgirls land at least one of those CBS Sports windows this season.
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For Oklahoma State fans, the name in that same conversation is Skyler Cassity, whose defense has also been part of the Week 5 coordinator stock report. The Cowboys have seen enough to believe the unit is moving in the right direction, but the bigger picture still leaves some room for proof, especially with efficiency and schedule context still part of the evaluation. In other words, there is real progress here, but the full resume is still being written. [Read more 🡒]