The Missouri women’s basketball team treated its home fans to a dramatic, 13-point comeback win in overtime against Oklahoma State on Wednesday night. But for junior forward Christine Flores, the biggest comeback of the night came much earlier in the game.
About four minutes into the second half, with Missouri trailing Oklahoma State by seven points, Flores was struck in the head by a Cowgirl player trying to drive the lane. Flores immediately clutched her head, went limp and collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Play was stopped as trainers immediately rushed onto the court to assist her. Flores was eventually helped off the court, though obviously dazed from the incident.
“I think I woke up snoring,” Flores said. “I don’t even know what happened, to be honest. I wanted to come back in. I didn’t want to come out. I wanted this win. I think everyone wanted this win. I owed it to my team to come back in.”
She did make a return later, scoring 11 points down the stretch to help Missouri overcome a 13-point deficit with five minutes remaining. Flores, who struggled with a broken finger last month, ended up with 23 points and seven rebounds on the night.
“I was proud of her,” Missouri coach Robin Pingeton said. “She’s been struggling as of late. She’s really trying to do right. It’s been hard for her to be out of the starting lineup. But she’s continued to hang in there and stay the course. They really hung in there and I’m proud of them.”
Flores’ incident was one of a few instances where physicality rose during the game Wednesday. Missouri lost senior forward BreAnna Brock to a leg injury a few minutes after Flores went out, and Cowgirl player Heather Howard was issued a technical foul after elbowing Tiger Sydney Crafton in the head. Pingeton was visibly unhappy with the officials, who issued her two bench technical fouls. Senior guard RaeShara Brown said the team fed off of their coach’s energy.
“You look on the sideline and our coach is going to die for us,” Brown said. “We talk time and time how much we love this coaching staff. To see (Pingeton) just continuing to fight and continuing to help us get calls and stuff like that, it just lit something under me.”
However, Pingeton downplayed the incident, giving credit instead to her team’s resiliency through the drama.
“I just think it speaks volumes about the growth they’ve had over the year,” Pingeton said. “Just their character, their integrity, their toughness. I saw a lot of good things out of them tonight in that closing few minutes and overtime. I thought this was a game they would regret for a long time if they didn’t find a way to finish it out.”
Missouri rose to 8th overall in the Big 12 with five games left on the schedule. Brown said the Tigers couldn’t get ahead of themselves while they’re on the back end of conference play.
“You either make your run now or you just lie down and take it,” Brown said. “We’re definitely not that kind of team. We got some opportunities ahead of us that we definitely can take advantage of. We couldn’t overlook Oklahoma State. We had to get this win.”
Now that they earned the win in dramatic fashion, Brown said the team would try to savor it while they can before they get ready to play rival Kansas in Lawrence on Saturday.
“You walk around with a smile on your face that can’t be wiped off,” Brown said. “You enjoy it. You just realize how hard you work and how much that can pay off if you give it that effort consistently.”