STILLWATER, Okla. (AP) — Travis Ford waited until about five minutes before the Bedlam rivalry game to have a team manager bring in the special suit jacket he was going to wear.

It was the brightest shade of orange, just like the one women's coach Kurt Budke used to wear when his Cowgirls faced rival Oklahoma.

After the game, Oklahoma State was able to present a game ball to Budke's widow in celebration of a victory intended to honor him.

Freshman Le'Bryan Nash tied his career high with 21 points, Keiton Page scored 18 and Oklahoma State beat Oklahoma 72-65 on Monday night.

It was the first basketball installment of the rivalry since Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were among four people killed in a Nov. 17 plane crash.

"I always thought it was kind of neat that he did it on Bedlam," Ford said. "I kind of thought about it in years past. It was kind of his thing.

"We kept it under wraps. I wanted to just honor him by it."

Ford didn't even tell his players until the game was almost ready to start, then told them the story of how the Cowgirls had upset No. 6 Oklahoma the first time Budke came out wearing the orange jacket.

"Let's go represent that in the right way," Ford told them.

The Cowboys (9-7, 2-1 Big 12) didn't trail after the first four minutes and hung on to pick up their fourth win in the last five games in the rivalry.

Carl Blair scored a season-high 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds, and Romero Osby had a career-best 18 points and 10 rebounds to lead Oklahoma (10-5, 0-3).

The Sooners have lost their first three games in Big 12 play for the second straight season and only the third time since the conference was created.

After a 9-1 start, Oklahoma has lost four of five.

"Conference play's tough," coach Lon Kruger said. "The level of competition has gone up a lot. We've got to realize that, try to prepare for that.

"I don't think our guys have been surprised by it. They know that the league is very, very good. We've got to do more things to make good things happen instead of just wanting good things to happen."

Oklahoma trimmed a 17-point lead to five in the final minute, but Oklahoma State made all eight of its free throws in the last 43 seconds to finish it off.

Oklahoma State claimed the lead for good with an early 7-0 run that featured a dunk by Michael Cobbins and a 3-pointer by Nash. The Cowboys then came up with an answer each time the Sooners started closing in down the stretch.

Blair scored eight straight points for Oklahoma to trim a 17-point lead to 52-43 on his 3-pointer from the left side with 10:19 left.

The Cowboys grabbed two offensive rebounds before Cobbins' left-handed dunk sparked a 10-2 response, with Markel Brown's reverse layup restoring the 17-point cushion at 62-45 with 7:22 remaining.

Blair started another comeback attempt by the Sooners with a 3-pointer, and Osby had back-to-back baskets to get the deficit down to 62-52 with a little over five minutes to play. But Oklahoma missed its next eight shots over the next four minutes to derail its chances.

Osby hit a 3-pointer from the left wing with 34 seconds left to pull the Sooners within 66-61, but Cezar Guerrero and Brian Williams made two free throws apiece on Oklahoma State's next two possessions to preserve the lead.

Williams finished with 13 points for the Cowboys, who limited the Sooners to a season-worst 32.4 percent shooting.

"We know our halfcourt defense is going to be our identity," Page said. "We know our offense is going to come to us."

Andrew Fitzgerald had 12 points and nine rebounds for Oklahoma but was limited to 25 minutes by foul trouble. The Sooners haven't shot better than 38 percent in three conference games after connecting on 45.4 percent in nonconference play.

"We haven't shot the ball well in any game in conference play," Kruger said. "We've got to get better movement, we've got to work harder to get better shots, we've got to compete harder against better defenses."

Neither team could get much going offensively at the beginning, combining to make only seven of 31 shots over the first 10 minutes. Oklahoma State strung together enough points for a 17-7 lead after Williams' two-handed jam.

The Sooners responded with their only consistent offensive stretch of the opening half, scoring the next nine points as Kruger gambled by keeping Cameron Clark on the floor with two fouls. Clark hit back-to-back jumpers and set up Osby for a two-handed alley-oop dunk during the run but then picked up his third foul with 6:37 left before halftime and had to come out.

Page drove for a layup and nailed a pair of 3-pointers during a 14-2 run to close the first half, and Cobbins' layup made it a 35-22 Cowboys advantage at the break.