Game Notes: at Oklahoma - Oklahoma State University Athletics (2024)

Oklahoma State (10-13, 2-8) at rv/rv Oklahoma (17-6, 5-5)
Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024 | 6:01 p.m. CT
Norman, Okla. | Lloyd Noble Center (11,562)

TV: ESPN+ (Mark Neely & King McClure)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Tickets: soonersports.com
Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Series: OU leads 141-106 (87-29 in Norman)
Streak: OSU, Won 3
Last: 3/8/2023 in Kansas City; Big 12 First Round (OSU, 57-49)

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The Basics:

• The Oklahoma State Cowboys (10-13, 2-8) make their final Big 12 era visit to Norman this weekend to take on the Oklahoma Sooners (17-6, 5-5). The Sooners make the return trip to Stillwater on Feb. 24.
• The Cowboys swept all three meetings in 2022-23 and are looking for back-to-back wins for the first time ever at Lloyd Noble Center (1976-Pr.) and for the first time in Norman since 1965.
• OSU is winless on the road this season (0-6) following Tuesday's 79-63 setback at No. 5 Houston. Javon Small finished with 18 points on 12-of-14 free throw shooting.
• The Cowboys rank second in the Big 12 in three-pointers per game (8.8). The Sooners are the league's best at preventing them. Their .283 three-point field goal percentage defense is seventh nationally.
• Oklahoma improved to 12-2 at home with Tuesday's 82-66 win over No. 21 BYU.

Watch:
The game will air on the Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with Mark Neely and King McClure. Fans can subscribe to ESPN's over-the-top streaming service for $10.99/month ($110/year) or bundle with Disney+ and Hulu for as little as $14.99/month. Visit plus.espn.com for more information.

Listen:
Dave Hunziker and John Holcomb describe the action on stations across the Cowboy Radio Network. Visit okstate.com/radio for a full list of affiliates by location. Fans outside the listening area can tune in via the Varsity Sports App or at okstate.com/listen.

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The Phillips 66 Bedlam Series:

• The 2023-24 school year marks the 25th season of the Phillips 66 Bedlam Series, highlighting the competitive spirit between the Cowboys and the Sooners in a wide range of sports across the athletic department.
• Points are awarded for head-to-head wins or (in cross country, track and golf) to the team with the best finish in Big 12 Championship play.
• OSU has a 12-11-1 lead eight wins in the last 10 years. The schools tied in 2022-23 (14-14-1).
• OSU is out to an early 5-2 lead in 2023-24, helped by Fall wins in football, wrestling and men's and women's cross country. The schools also split a pair of women's soccer matches. OU took the first point of the winter last weekend with a women's basketball win in Stillwater.

Last Time on Cowboy Basketball:
Feb. 6, 2024 | No. 5 Houston, OSU 63

• OSU hung 42 second-half points on the nation's top-ranked defense, but it wasn't nearly enough.
• Houston, the national leader in scoring defense (54.0), field goal percentage defense (.369) and turnover margin (+7.6) won its 18th straight at home behind 23 points from Jamal Shead.
• Javon Small scored 18 points on 12-of-14 free throw shooting and John-Michael Wright added 13 for OSU, which trailed 40-21 at halftime and by as many as 29 before rallying in the final 8:00.
• UH outscored OSU 44-16 in the paint and 24-12 off of turnovers to win the first Big 12 era meeting between the schools.
• OSU committed 11 of its 17 turnovers in the first half while hitting just 6-of-19 shots. Five of those giveaways came during a 12-0 UH run that pushed a one-point lead out to double-figures.
• UH scored the last seven first-half points and went on another 16-4 spurt early in the second following head coach Kelvin Sampson's ejection.
• OSU made eight of its last 12 shots to finish at 40.5% and sank a season-high 24 free throws on 37 attempts.

Team Trends:

• No. 4 Kansas, No. 5 Houston, No. 13 Baylor, No. 14 Iowa State, No. 23 Texas Tech and TCU occupy the top-six spots in the Big 12 standings. OSU has played seven of its 10 conference games against that group of schools but now has just one more remaining (the home finale against Texas Tech).
• Seven of the Cowboys' last eight contests will be against teams that are currently in seventh-place or lower in the standings.

Games Played: 7 (0-7)
Games Left: 1

Games Played: 3 (2-1)
Games Left: 7

• OSU is 7-2 this season (and 99-27 under Boynton) when out-shooting its opponent.
• Per KenPom, OSU opponents have scored 57.9% of their points on two-point field goals (12th highest nationally) while taking just 30.7% of their shots from behind the three-point line (21st lowest). By contrast, the Cowboys have taken 45.4% of their shots (28th) and done 37.4% of their overall damage from deep (28th).
• OSU's 8.8 threes-per-game is second on the Big 12 leaderboard behind BYU's nation-best 12.0. The Cougars come to Stillwater next Saturday.

Individual Notes:

• Javon Small is off to a hot February start with back-to-back 18-point performances, helped by a 17-for-20 free throw tally.
• For the season, Small is shooting 85.2% on exactly 4.0 free throw attempts per game. The list of Cowboys who have topped .850 over a full season on that many attempts is… Small. It's happened just seven times in school history and only three times in the shot clock era. Current OSU assistant Keiton Page did it in each of his last two seasons (2010-11 and 2011-12).

Javon Small (2023-24) -- 75/88, .852
Keiton Page (2011-12) -- 115/135, .852
Keiton Page (2010-11) -- 135/151, .894
Joey Graham (2004-05) -- 157/177, .887
Mark Tucker (1977-78) -- 114/125, .912
Jack Herron (1966-67) -- 68/78, .872
James Cooper (1963-64) -- 91/106, .858
Arlen Clark (1957-58) -- 160/185, .865

• Small ranks among the Big 12 leaders in three-point percentage (5th, .397), free throw percentage (6th, .852), defensive rebounding (6th, 4.86), assists (7th, 4.6), threes per game (10th, 2.09) and minutes (9th, 32:34).
• Brandon Garrison's 34 blocks are No. 7 on OSU's freshman single-season list. His next block ties him for Andre Williams (35 in 1999-00) and the one after will match Ivan McFarlin (2001-02).
• Garrison's 1.48 blocks per game rank fourth on the Big 12 Conference leaderboard.
• Garrison (.569) is also on track to post the fourth-highest freshman field goal percentage in program history (minimum 80 makes).
• Eight of Garrison's 19 steals and 26 of his 65 free throw attempts have come in the past four games (18/26). He's averaging 12.5 points over that stretch.
• In Big 12 play, Garrison (84.6) is the league leader in free throw rate -- a stat the shows the ratio of a free throw attempts to field goal attempts and generally reflects a player's ability to draw fouls and get to the line. Since 2014 (when KenPom began tracking conference only numbers) just one player has topped 80.0 over a full season (Iowa State's Jameel McKay at 92.3 in 2014-15).
• Freshman guard Jamyron Keller has been asked to shoulder more of the load in the absence of Bryce Thompson, who was injured less than 5:00 into the Jan. 30 game at Kansas. Keller clocked 8:53 that night and 43 more minutes in the two games since. He scored 12 points in the Feb. 3 win over K-State and had five more at Houston on Tuesday night.
• John-Michael Wright has scored in double-figures in all six games since rejoining the starting lineup on Jan. 20 and in 10 of his 11 starts this year. He's averaging 11.2 points as a starter compared to 4.4 points in 12 games off the bench.
• Wright's shooting has come around over the last month. He's 23-of-62 (.371) since Jan. 1 compared to 13-of-50 (.260) in November/December.
• Boynton credits Wright's off-season work or helping him weather that early storm. The veteran guard sank more than 25,000 three-point shots during the summer session.

Some Frosh Perspective:

• 13 Big 12 freshmen are averaging at least 10.0 minutes per game. Four of them are Cowboys.
• Rookies have combined for roughly a third of OSU's points (34.7%) and minutes (35.3%). Both percentages lead the Big 12.
• Tuesday at No. 5 Houston, those percentages climbed even higher with freshmen combining for 81 minutes (40.5%) and 26 points (41.3%).
• Only five of the league's 42 active freshmen have been on the court for more than half of their team's minutes. That group includes Eric Dailey Jr. (56.8%) and Brandon Garrison (55.5%).

The Series with Oklahoma:

• This is men's basketball meeting No. 248 and No. 117 in Norman. The Sooners have a 141-106 lead.
• The Cowboys, however, have won three straight and seven of the last eight meetings. The lone loss came in overtime in the 2022 Norman trip.
• This is the 97th consecutive year that the rivals have played a home-and-home series. With the exception of the 1926-27 season (when the teams did not play at all), OSU has otherwise visited Norman in every season since 1911-12 and hosted at least one game in Stillwater in every season since 1915-16.
• Mike Boynton Jr. (9-5) has the third-most wins among the 20 Cowboy head coaches who have taken part in Bedlam, trailing only hall of famers Henry Iba (50-27) and Eddie Sutton (19-15).
• The series has taken a sharp turn since Boynton's arrival. He was an assistant on the 2016-17 team that posted OSU's first sweep in 13 seasons. The Jan. 30, 2017 win snapped what had been a 12-game Cowboy losing streak in Norman.
• Since taking over as head coach, Boynton has added two more sweeps of his own in 2021 and 2023. The latter marked the first time since 1964-65 that the Cowboys have taken three games from the Sooners. That '65 group, led by Iba, won a preseason holiday tournament meeting and two more in conference play en route to a Big 8 title.
• A win on Saturday would give OSU back-to-back wins in Norman for the first time since that 1965 season. Cowboy teams are 29-87 there all-time, including 9-40 at Lloyd Nobel Center (1975-76 to present).

Scouting the Sooners:

• Oklahoma (5-5 Big 12) has already matched its conference win total from a year ago when it finished 5-13 (15-17 overall).
• The Sooners (No. 21 in KenPom and No. 16 defensively) are deeper and more athletic now. Eight players are averaging at least 7.0 points and 17.0 minutes per game. Five of them are experienced Division I transfers.
• OU opened the season 10-0 and spent 10 consecutive weeks in the Top-25 before falling out of the polls on Monday. They bounced back nicely on Tuesday night with an 82-66 win over No. 21 BYU, which came in averaging a nation-best 12.0 threes per game but made just 8-of-26 (.302).
• That's been a trend all year for OU opponents. The Sooners are surrendering just 6.1 threes per game on 28.3% accuracy. The latter leads the Big 12 and ranks among the NCAA's top-10.
• Offensively, OU has had success getting to the rim with a two-point percentage (.553) that's 25th best nationally.
• 6-2 junior Javian McCollum, a Siena transfer who comes in averaging 14.5 points, has knocked down 44 triples along with 64-of-69 free throws (for a Big 12-best 92.8%).
• 6-foot-5 sophom*ore Otega Oweh has more than doubled his production from a year ago, averaging 12.8 points with a team-high 41 steals.
• 6-4 point guard Milos Uzan – a 2023 Big 12 All-Freshman pick – has made progress, as well, averaging 8.8 points and 4.5 assists with a 2.58 assist-to-turnover ratio.
• 6-7 junior forward Jalon Moore (10.3 ppg) – a Georgia Tech transfer – is the team's leading rebounder (6.0) and shot-blocker (20).
• 6-10 senior Sam Godwin (7.0 ppg, 5.5 rpg) has also been an effective weapon under the basket, averaging a Big 12-best 3.14 offensive boards per game. Per KenPom, he leads the nation in offensive rebounding percentage, grabbing 21.3% of the Sooner misses.

Matchup Mashup:

• An Oklahoma native has led the scoring in each of OSU's last three Stillwater wins: Tulsa's Kalib Boone (17) in 2021, Midwest City's Rondel Walker (14) in 2022 and Tulsa's Bryce Thompson (19) in 2023.
• Freshmen Brandon Garrison (Oklahoma City) and Conner Dow (Broken Arrow) will get their first tastes of Bedlam on Saturday.

A Cowboy win would...

• Be their third in five games on the heels of an 0-6 Big 12 start and make them 11-13 (3-8).
• Be their first true road win of the season (1-6) and first since the 2023 finale at Texas Tech.
• Be their fourth straight over Oklahoma and eighth in nine tries.
• Give them back-to-back wins in Norman for the first time since the 1964 and 1965 seasons.
• Make them 6-1 vs. Moser (5-1 at OSU).
• Up Boynton's Bedlam record to 10-5.

Up Next: BYU
Saturday, Feb. 17, 6 p.m. CT (ESPN+)
OSU takes a midweek bye before taking on BYU for the first time in 20 years. The Cougars last visited Stillwater in 1971.