OKLAHOMA CITY — If ISU women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly was told before his team’s Big 12 Championship game against Oklahoma State that senior Hallie Christofferson would get several wide open 3s in the second half, he would probably say they’re going in.

That wasn’t how it played out, though.

“It didn’t go in. It went in the first half, it didn’t the second, give credit to Oklahoma State,” Fennelly said. “You’re playing a top-20 team, a good team, and they played better. That’s the nature of the beast.”

A shooting slump in the second half was enough to push Oklahoma State past Iowa State 67-57 March 8 in the Big 12 Championship quarterfinal round. The Cyclones (20-10, 9-9 Big 12) were led by Christofferson, who scored a game-high 21 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, with junior Nikki Moody adding 14 points.

For the senior All-Big 12 selection, the missed shots were possibly due to focus that was given to other places on the court. Despite going 1-of-8 from long range, Christofferson did shoot 6-of-6 from the free-throw line and was 7-of-16 from the field.

“Coming in, I was just trying to focus on the post and the inside, and when I got the ball on the outside, I probably just wasn’t ready to shoot the ball and it showed,” Christofferson said.

Iowa State came out of the tunnel to start the game with the offense clicking on all cylinders, jumping out to a 12-2 lead roughly three-and-a-half minutes into the game. Two of the seven makes from long range came in that stretch with the ISU offense going on to make 6-of-13 3-pointers in the first half en route to a 37-30 lead at the break.

The Cyclones looked poised to make as many 3s as they did in a win at Oklahoma State on Feb. 26, but then things started to change early in the second half.

Oklahoma State came out of the break with intensity on both ends of the floor, going on a 9-0 run in the first 1:34 of the second half to take a two-point lead. The Cowgirls outscored the Cyclones 18-4 through the first 7:08 of the second half and limited Iowa State to just one 3-pointer in the second half.

“We made a commitment to make sure we got back and also tried to follow Christofferson a little bit more, but that’s a hard guard for us because she’s a 6-foot-3 post who can step outside,” said OSU coach Jim Littell. “I think we were just a lot more conscious after the first 10 or 12 minutes of the game about guarding the 3-line.”

The Cowgirls came into the game with the mindset of taking away the 3-point line after allowing the Cyclones to shoot 15-of-36 from long range when Iowa State won in Stillwater, Okla. The run to start the second half probably didn’t hurt the OSU enthusiasm on the other end of the floor, either.

“When we were at home, our defense was slacking a lot,” said OSU senior Tiffany Bias. “I think tonight we came out and played the best defense we have all year.”

While effort was not an issue in the second half in Fennelly’s mind, there are certainly things that need to be corrected before a possible NCAA tournament berth.

“You look at the shot chart, which I don’t do, there’s seven missed layups,” Fennelly said. “You can take away the 3, you’re going to get something else and we didn’t make them. When you don’t make shots, that happens. Except for a couple that you had to force at the end of the game, I would say most of the 3-point shots we took were pretty good looks.

“That’s our team.”