Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 76-55 Victory against Tulsa

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TULSA — The last time the Cowboys played in the Reynolds Center, it didn’t go all that well for them; that wasn’t the case on Wednesday night.

Oklahoma State, under first-year coach Steve Lutz, beat Tulsa 76-55 in Tulsa. Here are five thoughts from the game.

1. Defensive Focus during Break Seems Positive

Oklahoma State held Tulsa to just 36% shooting on Wednesday night, marking the first time this season OSU has held a team under 40% shooting. In fact, teams came into Wednesday shooting 48% on the Pokes this season.

OSU’s defense had proved capable in other ways, like creating turnovers. A lot of those have been steals, leading to the fast-paced Cowboys running up for floor. There was still a good bit of that against the Golden Hurricane, as OSU forced 22 turnovers (16 steals) which led to 32 points off turnovers and was part of a night that saw the Cowboys score 17 points on the fastbreak.

This was OSU’s first game in 10 days. That’s an oddly long break in the middle of a basketball season. Lutz said leading into the game that much of the practice between games has been defensive focused.

“I thought that they followed the gameplan,” Lutz said. “When we were trapping a ball screen, we trapped the ball screen for the most part. When we were flat hedging, they flat hedged for the most part. They followed the gameplan, and then they kept the ball out of the paint. For us, that number is gonna be much lower than it has been.”

2. Basketball as Naismith Intended

Steph Curry changed basketball, making the 3-point shot the most popular shot in the sport. For much of the night Wednesday, you’d think there wasn’t a 3-point line out there.

OSU took just eight 3s on the night (two in the first half and six in the second). The Cowboys had taken at least 20 in every game before this trip to Tulsa. The Cowboys made three of those attempts, good for a 38% night the likes of which might have not been seen since the 90s.

Since they weren’t scoring from 3, the Pokes were scoring in the paint. OSU had 48 paint points on — just seven fewer points than Tulsa had in total.

Here is a list of things OSU had more of than 3-point attempts:

Offensive rebounds (12)
Assists (18)
Steals (16)

And if OSU didn’t take two 3-point attempts in the final 1:13, the Cowboys would’ve had more blocks (seven) than 3-point shots.

3. Depth Is a Strength, Especially for This Style of Play

Ten Cowboys played double-digit minutes Wednesday, which has been par for the course for much of the season. And Lutz said that isn’t changing.

Two things go into that. The first is that there isn’t a ton of difference in skill between guys one and 10. That whole group is super experienced with Jamyron Keller being the only underclassman. Most of that group is some sort of senior whether it be super, regular, graduate or otherwise.

The other thing that goes into it is that Lutz’s style demands a lot of effort. The defensive pressure is immense, and when the Pokes poke ball loose, they’re flying up the floor.

“I’m fine with our rotation,” Lutz said. “I think that we’ve got a group that’s fairly similar. Khalil Brantley, he wasn’t necessarily great in the first half, and Arturo (Dean) came in, and he played really, really well. But then the second half, I thought Khalil played better.

“You’ve gotta have enough bullets in the gun to play the way that we want to play. If you’re playing as hard as we’re asking you to play offensively and defensively, you’re not gonna be able to play more than three, four minutes at a time.”

4. Tulsa Kid Bryce Thompson Shines

Bryce Thompson said if he had to guess, his father, Rod Thompson, took north of 100 pictures on Wednesday night.

Rod played at TU under Bill Self in the late 90s. Bryce grew up in the 918, attending Booker T. Washington. After Bryce scored a game-high 15 points, he went to do a TV interview after the game, and Rod, wearing an orange OSU cap, was filming it on his phone.

After an illustrious career at Booker T. that earned him a McDonald’s All-American honor, Bryce perhaps played his final competitive game in Tulsa on Wednesday night.

“A little bit (of emotions) just because it’s my hometown,” Thompson said. “I had a lot of people here to support me, a lot of friends and family, so I just wanted to make sure that they saw us win, and that was it.”

5. Cool Team Moment

Lutz was able to use the end of his bench for the first time on Wednesday night, as Serbian center Andrija Vukovic and walk-ons Tyler Caron, Jaxton Bobik and Kirk Cole all made their OSU debuts.

When Lutz called for the trio of walk-ons, the rest of the bench (the guys who had been playing) starting hooping and hollering. It didn’t stop there.

When the walk-on trio was on defense, most of the bench was standing up and leading a chant. Caron popped a ball loose and went and dunked it on the other end, and the bench spilled out on the floor. Chi Chi Avery was in a power stance near the 3-point line. Brandon Newman ran halfway down the scorer’s table. It was a cool moment.

A nice dunk to end your night 🤩 @TylerjCaron15 pic.twitter.com/tLgVN42KgW

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) December 5, 2024

“It was great because those are our guys,” Thompson said. “Those are the guys that we go at in practice. We go back and forth, and for them to get a chance to go out there, and I think my guy Tyler got a dunk, so everybody was real happy about that. You just want those guys to succeed, as well, because they put in all the hours that we do.”

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