Hoops Notebook: Coleman’s Big Game, Nightmare Travel and OSU’s Tourney Resume

STILLWATER — It’s a big week for Cowboy basketball with a pair of Quad 1 games on the schedule.

Oklahoma State hosts No. 16 BYU at 8 p.m. Wednesday before heading to the desert to play No. 1 Arizona on Saturday.

This week comes on the heels of the Cowboys’ 81-69 win against Utah in Salt Lake City, their first Big 12 road win of Steve Lutz’s tenure. Lutz met with reporters on Monday to give updates on the program. Here are three things that stood out.

Christian Coleman ‘Played Up to His Capabilities’ in Salt Lake City

There was a stretch late in the Cowboys’ nonconference slate where Christian Coleman looked like perhaps the Cowboys’ best player.

Over a four-game stretch from Dec. 6 through Dec. 21, the UAB transfer power forward averaged 18.3 points and 6.3 rebounds a game. But then across the Cowboys’ next seven games, he didn’t score in double figures once and never had more than five rebounds in a game.

That ended Saturday in Salt Lake City.

Coleman had a 14-point, 10-rebound double-double against the Utes, marking Big 12 highs for him in points and rebounds.

“Chris played up to his capabilities,” Lutz said. “We’ve always talked about Chris, and he’s a talented young man. There was that time earlier around Oklahoma and Grand Canyon where he had been arguably our best player on the floor. Against Utah I thought that he was a little bit more of his self. He just for whatever reason hadn’t been playing well, and sometimes players go through those things — ups and downs. But I was proud of him. He continues to work, and he’s continued to put in the time and the effort. And now I just need his confidence to continue growing.”

Nightmare Travel

The Cowboys were set to meet at the Stillwater Regional Airport at 2:30 p.m. last Friday to leave for Utah, but then a text got sent in the team group chat to hold tight because there had been a delay.

Finally about 9 p.m. they were told to go to the airport — where a bus was awaiting them.

“Are we, like, bussing to Utah — 16 hours straight to the game?” Parsa Fallah recalled thinking.

Luckily, that wasn’t the case. The Cowboys bussed down to Oklahoma City and left from there, not arriving in Salt Lake City until the wee hours of Saturday morning — the day of the Cowboys’ game with the Utes.

The initial plane that was supposed to take the Cowboys to Utah was stuck in Chicago. By the time they were finally able to get a plane, conditions at Stillwater Regional Airport had worsened to the point that the team couldn’t leave from there because the airport doesn’t have the deicing equipment needed.

“I don’t understand it, and I don’t wanna complain,” Lutz said. “And I know that our administration is tired of hearing me complain, but I just don’t understand when you spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on private planes how they can’t be on time. That’s your job as a business, in my opinion, to have a fleet of planes ready to go, and when you have an issue, put the next plane in. And when you have an issue, put the next plane in. That’s the way I look at it. But there must be something that I’m missing, and I’m sure that we’ll sit down at the end of the season and discuss it because like I’ve said, we’ve had only one trip this year where we have not had flight issues.

“Then one other thing that we’re gonna have to address is Stillwater, any time we have any sort of snow, we don’t have the deicing equipment. So any time you have any sort of weather, you’re gonna end up in Oklahoma City almost. At a Power Four institution, you should absolutely be able to have deicing equipment and get past all that.”

OSU’s Resume Entering February

The madness of March is only a month away, but the Cowboys still have some work to do if they want to go dancing.

OSU enters February with a 15-6 record and currently sits ninth in the 16-team Big 12 standings.

The Cowboys are at No. 68 in the NET. They’re 0-4 in Quad 1 games (with two opportunities at get a big win this weekend). They’re 6-2 in Quad 2 and a combined 9-0 in Quad 3 and 4.

Lutz said Monday that he doesn’t discuss resume stuff much with his team, focusing with them more on the day-to-day aspects of being a better basketball team. But that doesn’t mean Lutz isn’t thinking about where the Pokes stand.

“As the head coach, you have to think about your resume,” Lutz said. “You have to look at your schedule, and who’s left on the schedule, and if you can win this one, and if you can win this one what does it do for you? Because at the end of the day, we’ve gotta figure out a way to get an at-large bid. At the end of the day, that is our job, and we’ve said that since the day I was hired is that my job is to compete for Big 12 titles and get to the NCAA Tournament and win games.

“As the head coach and the CEO of the organization, I have to take all of that into account, and there’s no better way to start than with a win against BYU on Wednesday.”