Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State 93-85 Exhibition Win Against Tulsa

Support PFB with a PFB+ membership — $8 a month or $50 for a year.

BOX SCORE

STILLWATER — The Cowboys’ second dress rehearsal went notably better.

Oklahoma State beat Tulsa 93-85 on Friday afternoon in exhibition play. Here are five thoughts on the contest.

1. Natt Was Everywhere

Kashie Natt stuffed the stat sheet plenty, but there was a play late in the first half that tells you all you need to know about the Sam Houston transfer despite it not showing up in the box score.

Latrell Allmond scored a layup with 34 second left in the half. As Tulsa was taking the ball out, Natt covered the point guard, forcing the in-bounder to look elsewhere.

With the other Cowboys getting back to the defensive end at the point, Natt was the only Cowboy still on that side of the floor. The in-bounder instead bounced a lazy pass to someone on the opposite sideline.

Natt sprinted over and laid out, getting his mitts on the ball. He was unable to corral it before touching the out-of-bounds line, but after the GIA crowd got over its initial shock of how the heck he even got that close, it let out a loud cheer for the effort.

“Just trusting my instincts,” Natt said of the play. “I felt like it hit the ground soft, so I just had to try to go make a play on it. I don’t know what else to say, I just tried to get the ball for the team.”

Natt was the clear best player on floor on Friday afternoon — finishing an assist shy of a triple-double.  — along with being the game’s biggest hustler. He finished with 26 points on eight shots, going 2-for-4 from 3. He also had a team-high 12 boards, nine assists and five steals.

With it only being an exhibition, it wouldn’t have counted anyway, but that would’ve been just the third triple-double in OSU history and second of points-rebounds-assists, trailing an effort from Maurice Baker in 2001.

“I’ve told y’all before, he’s special,” Lutz said. “His energy and his effort, it’s contagious. It doesn’t stop. It’s every single day whether its practice at 7 a.m. or 7 p.m. That young man is just special in that regard. …

“We’ve had — I don’t know — 10, 12 NBA teams, and I tell them all the same thing: he affects winning, and he affects your locker room. He affects your culture. You want him on your team no matter where you’re at.”

2. Even More Shorthanded Than Against New Mexico

The list of DNPs grew from exhibition one to exhibitions two.

On Friday, the Cowboys were without Kanye Clary, Jordan Burks, Luka Bogavac, Parsa Fallah and Mekhi Ragland. Of that quintet, I imagine all aside from maybe Ragland will heavily contribute to what OSU does this season.

3. OSU’s McDonald’s All-American Looked More In Control

Latrell Allmond is just the 11th McDonald’s All-American (10 if you don’t count Gerald Green) OSU has signed. Thus — whether fair or not — there are some high expectations of the 6-foot-8 forward getting his first taste of college hoops.

Allmond fouled out in 20 minutes on the floor in the Cowboys’ scrimmage against New Mexico, finishing with four points, two rebounds and three turnovers.

He was much better in his second dress rehearsal. He finished with 14 points, going 7-for-8 from the field with four rebounds and two assists in 25 minutes.

“Latrell continues to work,” Lutz said. “You guys have heard this probably over and over — freshmen, it takes them a while for them to settle in. The game and the speed of things is moving way too fast for him right now, and when he’s able to slow down and play off instincts, he’s really, really good.”

4. Lutz Got on His Squad Early

In-state sniper Denton Forsythe got the game’s scoring started, as the Tulsa hooper hit an early uncontested 3. Despite just 23 seconds having ticked off the clock by that point, Lutz took his first timeout to get his team know that wasn’t acceptable.

“We’ve worked on defense,” Lutz said. “We’ve talked about defense. I swear to you, if I allowed you into practice, you’d be like, ‘Damn, coach, that’s all he does.’ For us to come out, just not being locked in and ready to go — it was a simple transition play. … For us not to do that, it’s just, again, lackadaisical or a lack of concentration. We weren’t gonna start out that way. I’m not gonna allow that to happen, especially after (New Mexico’s) Jake Hall came in here and hit eight 3s on us.”

The defense was better Friday than it was against New Mexico, but giving up 85 points still isn’t the greatest sign that the D is where it needs to be.

Lutz noted that his squad had a dozen deflections against New Mexico and 36 against Tulsa. He said he’s working on his magic number for how many he’d like a game, but knows it’s somewhere between 30 and 40.

The Golden Hurricane did, though, go 16-for-38 (42%) from 3, with just about all of Tulsa’s points coming from deep. OSU had a 50-18 advantage in paint points.

5. Positional Length on Display

With the Cowboys being out two centers, they had to go “small” on a few occassions, and it gave Tulsa some issues.

There were a few instances where Allmond and the 6-foot-11 Andrija Grbovic, who is more a small forward than a center, were the two bigs on the floor.

The Cowboys were able to switch quite a bit in those instances and hound whichever Tulsa player had the ball.

We’ll see if it’s a useable strategy in Big 12 play, but going small looked good at times on Friday.

“We switch a lot with Latrell and AG (Grbovic), especially when they’re at the power forward,” Lutz said. “We almost always switch with those guys. So, now you put them out there, and it allows you to stay out of rotations. It allows you stay in more compact.

“The question mark is going to be can you do that with Julius (Halaifonua). Julius has shown flashes where I can switch ball screens with him and to the same thing. Ben (Ahmed) is gonna be a little bit more of a time-consuming process, but it just helps your defense. Any time you don’t put two people on the basketball, and now you’re not in a rotation, your defense should be more solid.”