Breaking Down Oklahoma State’s 2020-21 Basketball Roster

For now, Oklahoma State has used all of its available scholarships for next season with Donovan Williams’ commitment Monday.

Mike Boynton is bringing in five freshmen and graduate transfer Ferron Flavors Jr. to help fill is available 13 scholarships. Boynton has options as to how he uses this new group of players, and it looks like this team will function quite a bit differently than the past few. So, let’s breakdown the 2020-21 Pokes, starting with the roster.

The big question with the group: What are they going to do at power forward?

The two true power forwards on the roster are Hidde Roessink and Montreal Pena. Roessink has a ton of potential as a solid stretch four, but he played in just 20 games for OSU last season and averaged just 6.9 minutes in those games. He might not be ready to take on that big a role that soon.

There are murmurs that Pena might not qualify academically, so he might not make it to OSU next season. But even if he did, he isn’t a day-one starter.

It’s a possibility that Yor Anei and Kalib Boone could share time on the floor with Boone at the PF, but if either got in foul trouble, it would give OSU some trouble in protecting the rim.

The Cowboys will have a lot of height around the perimeter, so it’s possible a Keylan Boone or Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe would play the four. OSU’s offensive system doesn’t call too much for a true power forward. For the most part, Cameron McGriff was running around the perimeter. The only place that could potentially hurt the Cowboys is on the defensive end. Keylan Boone is taller and longer than McGriff, but Keylan (like his brother) would benefit from adding strength before next season.

The way I see it, there are two for-sure starters in this group in Cade Cunningham and Isaac Likekele. From there, either Yor Anei or Kalib Boone will start at center.

Here is the group I would go with (right now, months away from the season). And behind each starter, I’ll list everyone else who could spend time at that position.

PG — Cunningham/Likekele/Anderson/Mitchell
SG — Flavors/Williams/Likekele/Cunningham/Anderson/Harris/Walker
SF — Likekele/Moncrieffe/Cunningham/Ke. Boone/Williams
PF — Ke. Boone/Ka. Boone/Moncrieffe/Roessink/Pena
C — Anei/Ka. Boone/Roessink/Pena

That’s a ton of flexibility in a game that is becoming more and more positionless.

Cunningham’s size gives OSU even more flexibility, especially defensively. Cunningham can still run the point on the offensive end in a rotation with two natural shooting guards on the wing. Then defensively, Cunningham could guard a taller small forward and leave the two wing players to defend the guards.

I tried to not have this go all over the place like my brain is going when thinking of all the possibilities. But in short, OSU has options and depth. On paper this is the best roster of the Boynton era, but we’ll have to wait to see what it looks like on the floor.