Austin, Texas ? T.J. Ford and Victor Williams were locked in a tight test of speedy guards, both showing off flashy moves and making tough shots.

Ford ultimately got the best of his Big 12 Conference rival Saturday as No. 3 Texas pulled away from Oklahoma State for a 78-65 victory, ending the ninth-ranked Cowboys’ 15-game winning streak.

Ford, who has seldom been challenged this season, scored 17 points and handed out four assists despite an outstanding defensive effort by Williams.

“That’s the most aggressive someone has been on me all year,” Ford said. “I give him a lot of credit.”

Williams got his points, too, with 22 on 7-of-19 shooting. But it’s a team game, and Ford and Texas came out on top.

“Me and T.J. are both competitors,” said Williams, who hugged Ford when the game was over.

“It’s one of those times where I want to beat him and he wanted to beat me. I just wanted to tell him we’ve still got to go to Oklahoma State,” Williams said.

Royal Ivey added 17 points and James Thomas had 13 points and 16 rebounds for the Longhorns (14-3 overall, 5-1 Big 12), who remained unbeaten at home this season.

Oklahoma State (17-2, 6-1) lost for the first time in two months.

The loss dropped the Cowboys out of sole possession of first place in the conference. Texas, Kansas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State all have one Big 12 loss.

“They’re the best team in our league,” Cowboys coach Eddie Sutton said of Texas. “They’re the best team we’ve played this year.”

The victory was a measure of revenge for Texas, which had to watch Cowboys players carry Sutton off the Longhorns’ home court last season when the coach earned his 700th career victory.

Saturday’s game was Sutton’s 999th in the coach’s box — fourth among active coaches — but this one wasn’t nearly as sweet for his Cowboys.

Texas shot 51 percent from the floor and outrebounded Oklahoma State 41-28 in snuffing out the nation’s longest winning streak.

Before the game, the Erwin Center crowd of 14,804 observed a moment of silence for the loss of the space shuttle Columbia and its crew over Texas skies earlier in the day. After the national anthem, a student spirit group unfurled a large Texas Lone Star flag on the court.

Texas led 38-36 after a first half in which both teams shot better than 50 percent, neither led by more than five and the normally reserved Longhorns fans were on their feet.

Texas opened the second half with a 10-2 run as the Cowboys suddenly went cold, missing their first five shots. Ivey finished a fastbreak with a running bank shot and Ford capped the spurt with an incredible, twisting, fall-away jumper to his left that made it 48-38.

“I thought Royal was spectacular. It’s the best he’s played since he’s been here,” Texas coach Rick Barnes said.

The Cowboys started getting into foul trouble as starters Tony Allen and Melvin Sanders both had four fouls with more than 15 minutes left.

“The first three minutes of the second half, they blew out on us and then we’re trying to play catch-up the rest of the night,” Sutton said. “We just couldn’t get over the hump.”

Texas bumped the lead as high as 63-48 with 7:29 to play behind Brian Boddicker’s shot clock-beating three-pointer and Ford’s short jumper. At that point, the Cowboys were just 3-of-15 shooting in the second half.

The Cowboys cut it to 69-63 with a 9-1 run capped by Allen’s three-point play with 1:20 left. Williams stripped Ford at midcourt and Ford fouled Allen on the layup.

But that was as close as it got as Texas hit nine free throws down the stretch.