STILLWATER — The daughter of a basketball coach, Anna Gret Asi often found herself killing time alone in the corner of a gymnasium.

Her mother would lead practices for multiple age groups, from youth teams to the senior level of the Estonian women’s national team, all in the same day in the family’s hometown of Tartu.

When Asi was young, she would go through a couple of practices with the girls around her age — she was playing for the under-12 team by the time she was 9 — but when the older girls took the court, she’d move to the sidelines.

Despite her love of basketball, time would pass slowly for Asi when she wasn’t on the court, so she found a secondary option.

“Right across the street was McDonald’s,” Asi said with a giggle. “I was always at the gym from the first practice until my mother finished with the oldest group, so she’d give me some money to go get something to eat.”

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Those trips across the street lasted for quite a few years, but by 15, Asi was playing for Estonia’s national team.

Looking back, she’s especially fond of her first game, against Turkey.

“That was dope,” she said.

On Saturday, Asi will be in a different kind of big game, coming off the bench for Oklahoma State in the regular-season finale against rival Oklahoma. The 16th-ranked Sooners visit Gallagher-Iba Arena for a 2 p.m. showdown.

OU is fighting for a regular-season conference title. The Cowgirls are tied for third with Baylor and Iowa State, hunting a better seed for the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments.

As part of the Cowgirl renaissance under first-year coach Jacie Hoyt, Asi has become a crucial piece. Though the 5-foot-8 sophomore point guard has battled injuries over the course of the season, she’s averaging 7.5 points and 2.1 assists in 17.2 minutes per game.

“Anna Gret is the player — when I’m gone, I’ll pay for a flight to come back and see her play,” senior point guard Naomie Alnatas said. “This girl is crazy. Her fundamentals, her mindset. She might seem like a quiet player, but the work that she does on the court is dirty. I’m amazed, because she’s very fundamental. She can do it all.

“I still think she can be a little more selfish. She’s super-sweet, but when you’re that great, I think you can have the confidence to say, ‘Give me the f-ing ball.’”

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To that point, Asi is shooting 46.5% from 3-point range, hitting 40 of 86 attempts. That would lead the Big 12 and be top 10 nationally if she had enough attempts to qualify for those lists.

In conference games only, she’s averaging 9.8 points and shooting 50.8% (31-of-61) from 3-point range.

In the first Bedlam meeting of the season, a 97-93 loss at OU, Asi hit seven 3-pointers to finish with a career-high 26 points while also grabbing six rebounds.

For a woman who averaged 1.9 points per game and attempted just six 3-pointers all year as a freshman at Arizona last year, Asi is showing her true talent in Stillwater.

“We’re seeing what she’s capable of doing,” Hoyt said. “And she can do it consistently. Every time she shoots it, I think it’s going in. But then you put her in a ball screen, and you know she’s gonna get someone a wide-open shot. She’s a wizard with the ball.

“You don’t know whether she’s gonna pass it or score it, but it’s fun every time. She just has those jaw-dropping plays that she can create.”

What she’s doing at this level in America is almost unheard of from Estonian basketball players. Only one Estonian-born man has ever made it to the NBA — Martin Muursepp, who played 83 games over three seasons with Dallas and Miami in the late 1990s.

Another two dozen or so have made it to the NCAA, but the female reach hasn’t been so significant.

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Big 12 competition certainly hasn’t scared Asi, who was playing against grown women on the international level by the time she was 15, eventually traveling to places like Latvia, Finland, Sweden and Germany.

In the past, Asi has joked that she spent more of her youth in the gym than in her own home.

“Ever since I was born, I was dragged around to all the courts and tournaments and all that stuff,” Asi said. “I liked basketball all my life, but I actually started playing when I was 7. I always liked to do things on my own, so I’d be around the gym dribbling or shooting or whatever.”

By age 12, it was clear her talent has surpassed her peers. Then, her opportunities on the senior national team in her mid-teens opened the door to college basketball.

“It’s hard to get exposure in Estonia,” she said.

After a strong showing with the national team in 2018, Asi was invited to the NBA’s Basketball Without Borders European camp in nearby Latvia.

“I just took a bus from Estonia,” she said. “It was really cool to get to interact with the other top players in my age group from around Europe.”

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Asi received an MVP award at that event and was invited to the global camp in Chicago.

Along the way, she began gaining recruiting attention from a variety of programs, including Kansas, where OSU assistant Jhasmin Player was working from 2019-21.

Player lost out on Asi, who signed with Arizona. But when Hoyt hired Player last year, and she saw Asi in the transfer portal, Player made her pitch for Asi.

“Jhasmin Player is an elite international recruiter and she had a great knowledge of Anna Gret,” Hoyt said. “I think we had a leg up, and we just loved her on film.”

Even though she’s been coming off the bench this season, the value of Asi’s role has only grown since she got healthy..

“I was hurt for the first half of the season, and that’s why I was not as aggressive,” she said. “After the Christmas break, I got a little rest and … something just clicked.

“I feel like I’m starting to play like I used to play when I was back home.”

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OU vs. OSU

TIPOFF: 2 p.m. Saturday at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater (ESPN+)

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State basketball: Anna Gret Asi is 'wizard' for OSU Cowgirls