MORGANTOWN — Mark Kellogg stopped short of calling No. 19 West Virginia’s 72-40 victory against Oklahoma State any type of statement win.

“I don’t know if we would ever use the term ‘statement win’ ever,” the WVU head coach said. “I don’t know that would ever come out of my mouth.”

Oklahoma State head coach Jacie Hoyt knew exactly what to call it.

“There’s not a whole lot to say, that was pretty much a good old fashioned butt kicking,” she said.

At the very least, the Mountaineers (22-6, 12-4 Big 12) made a major defensive statement on Saturday inside Hope Coliseum by taking the Big 12’s top offensive team and making it look like a shell of itself.

The Cowgirls (21-8, 10-6) were without one of their top players in sophomore guard Jadyn Wooten, but on this day, it hardly mattered. Oklahoma State’s entire starting five still boasted double-figure scorers, but only forward Stailee Heard got there. That didn’t happen until early in the fourth quarter, and by then, the Mountaineers’ lead had already reached 30 points.

“Was it a good win for us? Yes. Was that a really good quality basketball team? Yes,” Kellogg continued. “I think if you start to think statement, you start to relax and don’t focus on the next one. For us, it’s process driven. We got one against a really good team at home, which we needed to get.”

Oklahoma State entered the game averaging 83 points a game, but WVU held it to less than half that. It was Oklahoma State’s lowest-scoring game of the season … by 21 points.

“We had practiced all week on guarding the 3-point line and we knew they were good in transition,” said WVU forward Kierra Wheeler, who finished with her seventh double-double of the season with 18 points and 10 rebounds. “We put an emphasis on it all week. We knew what they were good at and we wanted to take it away. My team is more than capable of holding teams to 40 points. We’ve proved that.”

The win assures WVU of finishing in the top four of the Big 12 standings, which means a double-bye into the quarterfinal round of the Big 12 tournament. With two regular season games remaining, the Mountaineers can still finish anywhere from first to fourth in the conference, but will be no lower than the No. 4 seed.

It’s the first time WVU has earned a double-bye in the Big 12 under Kellogg.

“It was one of the goals, but we still want a Big 12 title,” Kellogg said. “We don’t care if TCU loses and we have to split it, to me, that’s still a Big 12 title. That’s goal No. 1 is to be a Big 12 champion. Obviously, getting a double-bye, we do understand those things. We’ve put ourselves in a position to talk about it on Feb. 21, so that’s maybe the most exciting piece.”

WVU took control early, hitting 10 of its first 16 shots. WVU guard Gia Cooke banked in two 3-pointers and Wheeler added six points in the paint to get the Mountaineers out to a 23-12 lead heading into the second quarter.

“The right side is kind of my spot,” Cooke said about the banked-in 3-pointers. “I let it fly. It was the right shot. I called the second one. I didn’t call the first one. We were talking about it at halftime and people were asking me if I was (banking them in) on purpose.”

Cooke finished with 21 points and five 3-pointers and West Virginia finished with 21 assists. The Mountaineers’ defense did not let up after halftime, holding Oklahoma State to just five points in the third quarter.

“West Virginia was good today. They couldn’t miss,” Hoyt said. “On the other side, we couldn’t make anything. It’s hard to recover when you have a half like that. I think the game was pretty much over in the first half.”

A game after being held scoreless against TCU, WVU point guard Jordan Harrison came back with 12 points, seven assists and five steals.

About the only thing that went bad for WVU was losing Cooke for a few minutes to a busted lip in the third quarter. She returned to action early in the fourth quarter. WVU also lost guard Sydney Shaw, who also took a shot to the face in the third quarter.

Shaw returned to the bench, but did not come back into the game.

“She got stitches in her lip, but I also think it was lips, mouth and face,” Kellogg said of Shaw. “Something along those lines.”

Heard finished with 13 to lead Oklahoma State.