When Oklahoma State players gathered in a team huddle moments prior to the overtime period, coach Steve Lutz singled out Kanye Clary.

Lutz looked directly at the OSU point guard before delivering direct orders. Firm, blunt, concise and to the point.

“Go win the game.”

Ten days prior, the Cowboys dropped a home game to TCU in overtime. Sloppiness, "hero ball," as Lutz has called it, and a lack of execution late. All of it culminated into an agonizing defeat, in a game OSU led for majority of.

Tuesday, however, displayed a polar-opposite product.

OSU ended a five-game losing streak with a 91-84 win in overtime against West Virginia at Gallagher-Iba Arena. Six Cowboys (17-11, 5-10 Big 12) finished with double digits in scoring. But Clary’s takeover won OSU the game. His 17 points and six assists put a damper on any opposing momentum, stifling WVU down the stretch.

And Clary headlined OSU’s offensive attack. 

“I think those guys in the huddle essentially said, ‘Hey, we’re not gonna allow what happened the other night against TCU to happen again,” Lutz said. “And against TCU, they scored at will and we did not. We flipped the table on West Virginia’s night."

But it didn’t come without late drama. 

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The Cowboys took a 46-33 lead into halftime, but the Mountaineers (16-12, 7-8 Big 12) didn’t let up in the second half.

West Virginia ignited a 10-0. A DJ Thomas put-back gave the Mountaineers a 56-55 lead, its first advantage since the 9:31 mark in the first half. And as momentum gradually evaded the Cowboys, Lutz turned to Clary to facilitate things.

“We knew we weren’t going to let what happened against TCU happen again,” Clary said. “...We’re too good of a team for that.” 

And he did.

Each step-back 3 came with relative ease, while the contested ones appeared less complex than normal. Case in point — he drained a step-back, double-contested 3 in the right corner to give OSU a 71-68 lead with 5 minutes remaining. A shot that had no business appearing as smooth as it did. 

Each assist often progressively hindered any hopes of a win for the Mountaineers. And each word of encouragement rejuvenated his teammates. 

His steady hand guided OSU through a back-and-forth latter stretch in the second half. Shortly after, it propelled them through overtime.

The Cowboys could have fallen victim to another treacherous loss. But they didn’t, and Lutz was quick to credit Clary for his late-game heroics postgame. 

“We talk a lot about Kanye distributing the basketball and managing the team, and I think he’s done a tremendous job with that,” Lutz said. “Tonight, he saw that we needed him to score some, and he hit a couple big shots to bail us out, maybe when we weren’t playing nearly as well.

“And I can’t understate how great he was defensively when he had (West Virginia’s Honor) Huff. I don’t know that Huff scored on him. Maybe one or two baskets, but I don’t know that Huff scored on him.”

Simultaneously, Lutz pointed to OSU’s rebounding success as a commonality in its win. 

During OSU’s losing skid, it was out-rebounded with ease in four of those five contests. On Tuesday, the Cowboys dominated the boards against West Virginia 40-33. That included a multitude of key rebounds and success in grabbing 50-50 balls late in overtime. 

“Honestly, the last 10 minutes of the second half, we got away from what was winning — what was helping us win the game,” Clary said. “Not playing as hard, not (being) as urgent to the ball as we needed to be. I think overtime was the more urgent team, and we got a lot of 50-50 balls our way that helped us win.”

The overtime period demanded composure, and it demanded urgency. For the first time in nearly one month, the Cowboys supplied both. By the time the final seconds ticked away, OSU had done what eluded it against TCU, or in any of their past five games — late execution.

An NCAA Tournament berth at this juncture in the season might appear far-fetched. The loss of starting center Parsa Fallah — who led OSU in scoring with 18 points to eight rebounds — for the foreseeable future due to injury doesn’t make attaining that any easier. 

Still, it isn’t impossible. And if anything, Lutz said, Tuesday was an establishment of positive momentum for a lengthy road ahead. 

“I don’t think people understand how unbelievably hard this league is,” Lutz said. “You lose five in a row and you think the world is falling. Because you’re an 18- to 23-year-old man who basketball is your entire life, almost. And when you’re good people like (Fallah) and the rest of the guys on the team, it just consumes you, and it just beats you down. So, I’m happy for our guys to be able to come out, tough it out and get a win.

“I give the guys credit for hunkering down and rebounding when it mattered.”

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