After playing in the finals of the Big 12 Tournament, the Oklahoma State Cowboys earned a No. 4 seed and will open NCAA Tournament play Friday against Liberty at 5:25 p.m. on TBS.

Should the Cowboys beat Liberty, the would face the winner of the opening round game between No. 5 Tennessee and No. 12 Oregon State in the Midwest Bracket. All the games are being played in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Liberty (23-5, 11-2 in the ASUN Conference) have won 12 games in a row.

Ritchie McKay has coached Liberty for six straight seasons and previously was coach for two years (2007-2009). McKay was an associate head coach at Virginia.

“Coach (Ritchie) McKay is a tremendous coach. He’ll have his team prepared so we’ll have to be ready to battle,” said Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton.

In the past three years, Liberty is 82-16 with three straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament. In 2019, Liberty beat 5-seed Mississippi State in the first round as a No. 12 seed before losing to Virginia Tech in the second round.

This season, Liberty lost to TCU 52-56 and Purdue 64-77 in November and to Missouri 60-69 in December. Their other losses were to Lipscomb and Stetson. They lost to Lipscomb on January 1 and then beat them on January 2. They lost to Stetson on January 15 and then beat them on January 16.

Junior guard Darius McGhee leads Liberty in points per game this season with 15.6, shooting 45.8% from the field. He is also shooting 41.3% from 3-pointer range. He is averaging nearly 23 points in the past seven games, scoring a career-high 34 points against Bellarmine on Feb. 27.

The Flames defeated North Alabama, 79-75, in the ASUN title game to advance to the NCAA Tournament for the fifth time.

Oklahoma State ranks second nationally with 10 N.E.T. Quadrant-1 victories and owns a 10-6 Q1 record. The Cowboys also have nine wins over Associated Press top-25 squads, which leads the nation.

OSU had a stretch that included six ranked wins in 19 days. According to ESPN Stats & Info, that is the second-shortest span for six ranked wins in the AP Poll era (1948-49) behind only UConn’s magical run to the 2011 NCAA title.

As late as Feb. 13, the Cowboys were unranked, but have since won eight of 10 games and have risen to No. 12 in the AP top-25.

This will be the first ever basketball meeting between Oklahoma State and Liberty.

OSU was the first program to win back-to-back NCAA titles in 1945 and 1946, an also has six Final Four appearances, 11 Elite Eights and 11 Sweet 16s. Only UCLA, Kentucky, Indiana, North Carolina, Connecticut, Duke, Kansas and Louisville have more NCAA championships than Oklahoma State. The Cowboys earned a spot in the Final Four in 1945, 1946, 1949, 1951, 1995 and 2004.

Oklahoma State is 12-7 all-time in the round of 64 and 6-6 in the round of 32, but is looking for its first NCAA Tournament victory since 2009. OSU was a No. 4 seed when their advanced to the Final Four in 1995. The Cowboys are 5-2 all-time as a No. 4 seed, and own a 2-0 record against the No. 13 seed.

On Saturday, OSU fell to Texas 86-91 in the Big 12 Championship in Kansas City.

“We didn’t play well enough,” Boynton said. “Texas outplayed us. They kind of imposed their will on the glass and the truth is their two seniors, the guys that have been around the longest, stepped up and made huge plays for them when they really needed them, especially when we got it cut down there late. Coleman hit a big three, Sims had that huge offensive rebound putback for them, and that’s what seniors do. That’s what you see a lot this time of year.”

“The thing that I will remind them of probably every day until we play is the next time we have this feeling, losing a game, it’s over,” Boynton said. “This team won’t be together anymore. We need to make sure that we have an understanding of that.”

It was the first Big 12 Tournament championship for the Longhorns, who are seeded No. 3 and will open against Abilene Christian in the NCAA Tournament.

Seven Big 12 teams: OSU, Oklahoma, Baylor, Texas Tech, Texas, West Virginia and Kansas made the NCAA Tournament. That ties the Atlantic Coast Conference for the second most teams behind the Big Ten (with nine).

Against Texas, freshman Cade Cunningham had 29 points for the fifth-seeded Cowboys, including a pair of 3-pointers in the final minute, the last getting them within 89-86 with 6 seconds to go.

Cunningham is projected to be the top pick in the next NBA Draft.

“He’s the best player in the country,” Boynton said. “I don’t think it’s close.”

OSU got to the finals by upsetting No. 1 seed Baylor, 83-74.

“You gotta believe something can happen and you gotta see yourself do it before you can put it into action,” Boynton said. “I wanted to set a tone with this team pretty early about what I expected us to be capable of doing. And then we went to work … and here we are.”

 The Cowboys had lost to Baylor in their two previous meetings this season, the first without Cunningham. With both players in the fold Friday in Kansas City, Missouri, Boynton finally had a full complement of players ready to take on the Bears.

Cunningham finished with 25 points, eight rebounds and five assists, with 20 of those points coming in the second half.

“Everybody’s stepping up,” said Cunningham. “Everybody’s trying to find ways to perfect that role, whatever that is. The staff giving us great game plans and just us buying into those, that’s really translated into winning more. Once we won a couple big games, our confidence has only grown. It’s through the roof now. It’s still going. We’re trying to see how far we can take this.”

Oklahoma State is appealing an NCAA ruling that put them on probation and banned postseason play. Until that appeal is decided, the Cowboys are eligible for the NCAA Tournament.