STILLWATER, Okla. -- Marcus Smart scored 20 of his 21 points in the second half to help Oklahoma State defeat No. 5 Kansas 72-65 on Saturday night and give a major boost to the Cowboys once-fading NCAA tournament hopes. Oklahoma State (19-10, 7-9 Big 12) overcame a 10-point deficit in the second half. The Cowboys improved to 3-0 since Smart returned from a three-game suspension for shoving a Texas Tech fan. Andrew Wiggins scored 15 points for Kansas (22-7, 13-3), which already had clinched the Big 12 title outright before tipoff because Texas and Iowa State lost earlier. The student section was filled nearly an hour before the opening tip. The crowd included Oklahoma City Thunder players Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook and their coach, Scott Brooks. Wiggins three-point play tied the game at 64 with just over 2 minutes to play. Kamari Murphys layup gave Oklahoma State a 66-64 lead with 1:37 remaining. Kansas Naadir Tharpe missed a jumper, and Murphy pulled in the rebound. Smart made a layup with 46.1 seconds left to push Oklahoma States lead to four, then he broke the press and hit another layup with 23.8 seconds to go to put the game out of reach. The Jayhawks led 26-25 at halftime despite 35 per cent shooting. Oklahoma State shot just 24 per cent in the first half but forced 11 turnovers. LeBryan Nash and Markel Brown scored nine points each to keep the Cowboys in the game. Smart had one point on 0-for-7 shooting. Wiggins scored five points in the half but committed two fouls. Brown hit a 3-pointer in the opening seconds of the second half to give Oklahoma State a 28-26 lead, but Kansas answered with a 3-pointer by Wayne Selden. Smart made his first field goal, a 3-pointer, with 17:46 to play. He drew the third foul on Joel Embiid with 14:19 to go and the Jayhawks up 38-36. Wiggins picked up his third foul 11 seconds later. Kansas responded with a run. With both freshman stars on the bench, Tharpe and Selden drained 3-pointers that put the Jayhawks up 46-38. A three-point play by Perry Ellis pushed Kansas lead to nine, and a pair of free throws by Wiggins extended the margin to 10 for the first time. Oklahoma State muscled its way back into the game with a three-point play by Nash and a long lob by Smart to Brown that cut Kansas lead to five and got the crowd back into the game. The Cowboys moved into the double bonus with 5:50 remaining, and Brown made two free throws to give Oklahoma State a 60-59 lead. Nash picked up his fourth foul with 4:35 remaining, but Smart calmed him down after Nash disagreed with the call. Wiggins picked up his fourth foul with 4:09 to play. Smarts 3-pointer with 3:44 left put Oklahoma State up 63-61. Patriots Jerseys China . 25 against Miami. 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Jim Lee Hunt Jersey .com) - Troy Brouwer scored the game-winning goal with just 12.Discussing his Green Bay Packers victory over the Atlanta Falcons on a snowy night at Lambeau Field this week, coach Mike McCarthy uttered the sort of platitude that certainly sounds true.Winning in December is important, McCarthy said, and winning in December is difficult.Actually, a look at recent history shows the first part is not necessarily the case — especially if the ultimate goal is the Super Bowl. The idea that a strong regular-season finish is a prerequisite for an NFL championship turns out to be one of the myths and misconceptions about the last month of the year.Only once in the last nine years has a team with a better post-Dec. 1 regular-season record than its Super Bowl opponent won the title. And three times in that span, a team with a losing record down the stretch wound up taking home the trophy: Baltimore was 1-4 after Dec. 1, 2012; New Orleans was 2-3 heading into the playoffs three years earlier; Indianapolis was 2-3 three years before that. Each of those champs beat a Super Bowl foe that had a winning record over its final five regular-season games.Theres also a deep assumption that cold-weather teams dominate in the late season and playoffs.The weather definitely plays a part in football games late in the year, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon said. I dont think theres a player alive that loves to play in cold weather, but you can get used to it.The Vikings chose the north sideline at TFC Bank Stadium — their temporary home while a dome is being built — because they thought it would help during colder games. With the angle of the sun on December afternoons, the south sideline where the visitors stand is usually completely shaded; if the sun is out, the Vikings sideline gets all of it.Coach Mike Zimmer said on-field readings from Minnesotas home game against Carolina on Nov. 30 showed a 20-degree difference between the sunny and the shaded sideline.The players thanked me for being on that side a couple of times, Zimmer said.While players — or their fans — in spots such as Buffalo or Pittsburgh might hope for an edge down the stretch in this seasons tight AFC playoff race, data compiled by STATS also shows that not all teams based in cold-weather cities thrive this time of year.ddddddddddddSure, over the past 10 seasons, New England is a league-best 42-7 in December, and 14-4 when its 32 degrees or colder at kickoff (oddly enough, only Houston, at 3-0, has a higher winning percentage).But Denver is only 8-9 at 32-or-below at kickoff, a .471 winning percentage thats a significant drop from its .609 in all other games over the decade. Another example: The Cleveland Browns havent been particularly good in any weather the past 10 years, but their winning percentage drops from .349 at 33 degrees or above to .238 when the mercury drops.Sometimes if you take a cold-weather team into warm weather late in the year, that can affect them just as much as it does when you take a warm-weather team and put them in cold weather. Now youve been practicing in colder weather and you have to go out and play in warmer weather — and youre not used to that, either, said Moon, who played for the CFLs Edmonton Eskimos before moving to the NFL. Fatigue sets in. Guys can get a little more tired or dehydrated.At the other end of the spectrum, there are teams from warm-weather sites that do just fine in the cold, such as the Miami Dolphins, who in admittedly small sample size have gone 4-3 at 32-or-below since 2004, a .571 winning percentage that dwarfs their 33-and-above mark of .416.If guys excel in cold weather, it has to be something theyve been coached on or theyve been taught to block it out and say, Were going to play better, Redskins receiver Santana Moss said. When coach (Joe) Gibbs was here, he always taught us that Redskins weather was bad weather — wet, soggy, gloomy, cold. And we actually won games that time of year. We had the same team that didnt even go to the playoffs, but we won games in December.___AP Pro Football Writer Dave Campbell in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, contributed to this report.___Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich ' ' '