Going into Opening Night, Cowboy Offense Brings More ‘Firepower,’ But Defense ‘A Work in Progress’

ORAL ROBERTS PREVIEW

STILLWATER — Year 2 of the Steve Lutz era has a few holdovers, but it’s just about an entirely new team from the one the Cowboys fielded a season ago.

Oklahoma State opens its season against Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. Tuesday in Gallagher-Iba Arena. The Cowboys’ roster features three returners: Robert Jennings II, Andrija Vukovic and Kirk Cole. The other dozen players are new, coming by way of the transfer portal, the high school ranks or from overseas.

The group has played a pair of high level exhibitions on the road, beating Auburn 97-95 in overtime before falling 86-71 to SMU. That Auburn win alone was enough to inject some juice into the Cowboy fanbase that has waited so long to have something to be excited about. Lutz said there’s also a nice energy in the locker room going into the year.

“If you’re not excited about this, something’s wrong with you,” Lutz said Monday. “Another basketball season. Obviously Year 2 comes with it, in my opinion, a lot higher expectations, and that’s the way it should be is we should have high expectations and we should embrace those. It’s exciting, very exciting.”

With the team being so new, the play on the court will be different.

OSU ranked 148th nationally in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency last season, which ranked 15th of 16 in the Big 12.

Lutz and Co. made it a point to add offense this offseason, bringing in a combined 94.2 points a game among the Cowboys’ seven portal pickups. Five of those portal additions averaged at least 11 points a game at their respective schools last season.

That’s led by Green Bay transfer Anthony Roy, who was leading the country in scoring (25.7 points a game) before an ankle injury ended his season after just 11 contests. But don’t overlook the likes of Seton Hall transfer Isaiah Coleman, who put up 15.6 points a game in the Big East last season, or Parsa Fallah, a center who transferred from Oregon State after averaging 12.8 a game for the Beavers.

By personnel alone, the Cowboy offense should be better this season than it was last.

“With the amount of firepower that we have offensively, it’s a great problem to have with a bunch of guys who can go create for themselves, which in turn creates for others,” said assistant coach Dana Valentine, who works essentially as an offensive coordinator for the Pokes. “Just getting them to understand that, hey, you had to take those contested shots at other places, but you’ve got good teammates all around you like you do here, just being able to get the ball kicked out to the perimeter or maybe making that one more pass if it’s necessary, whatever the case may be, whatever it calls for, but just understanding that you got guys that are capable around you that you that can make plays.”

A point of emphasis for this team with so many scoring options will be keeping the ball moving. Valentine mentioned that Monday, and freshman Mekhi Ragland last week noted staying away from “hero basketball” will unlock the offense.

Valentine said as this group gets to know one another a little better and continue to gain trust in one another, that will continue to work itself out.

“It hasn’t been a battle,” Valentine said. “They don’t fight it. I think it’s just kind of been a natural progression where they understand like, ‘Hey, if I move the ball, these guys are gonna knock down shots. I got guys all around me that are capable. I get the ball inside, it’s gonna end up in the basket. It’s good for the team.’ We got a bunch of guys that care about each other and care about winning, so that’s kinda worked itself out pretty naturally.”

OSU was better defensively than it was offensively last season, but not by a ton. The Cowboys ranked 72nd in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency, which ranked 13th in the league.

Lutz is a demanding coach — period — so that obviously translates to the defensive end. One of his consistent messages throughout the preseason is that the Pokes still have a lot of room for growth on that side of the floor. Jennings also noted a need for more consistency on the defensive end on Monday.

They were only exhibition games, but that need to defend better is highlighted by the fact that OSU gave up 181 points in those two games.

“We’re still a work in progress, brother,” Lutz said. “We’ve got a long ways to go on the defensive end. We’ll be good for periods of time, and then you may look up and say, ‘Wow, they just shot a free throw and gave up a transition basket on the other end.’ Not because we don’t get back, but we kinda halfways get back. We don’t communicate and get matched up. It’d just be mind-blowing to you sometimes.

“We’ve gotta become much more of a cohesive unit on that end, and we’ve gotta be more diligent just in terms of concentrating on winning the game through our defense and not our offense.”

Better offense and need for improvement on defense are known at this point, but for a group with 12 new players, there are still a lot of unknowns.

Lutz said in this modern landscape, it might be some time before coaches truly know all the ins and outs of their teams.

“It’s a day-to-day deal,” Lutz said. “We’re nowhere near a finish product, and I learn something new about the team, I learn something new about the players individually each and every day, so yeah, I would assume that this happens all year long. This is just the new norm. We should get used to it.”