Why Oklahoma State Basketball Might be Playing Small Lineups to Start the Season

Oklahoma State basketball is not starting out 2017-18 at full strength. One of its key cogs, Davon Dillard, had surgery recently and will be out for a while. Transfer Yankuba Sima won’t be eligible until next semester.

As Kyle Cox noted here, that makes for a pretty thin rotation, and as Mike Boynton pointed out recently, Oklahoma State might play small ball for the first part of the season (at least until Dillard and Sima return).

“I’d like to get the whole team together at some point,” said Boynton on Monday. “I’m looking down the bench at post reserves, and there are very few options. Once I put Lucas (N’Guessan) in, the guy he came in for has to go back in the game.

“I don’t have any other option right now other than to play Jeff at the four or Lindy at the four or Tavarius at the four. Then we’re really small. I remember watching the film, we had Cam playing center and four guards out there the other night.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_9AJ1nT6oE

That actually might not be a bad thing. I’d love to see a lineup of, say, Brandon Averette-Kendall Smith-Lindy Waters-Jeffrey Carroll-Cam McGriff. Is the other team going to put a four on Clip? That’ll be fun. Defensively a small OSU team could struggle, but maybe it can make up for that with quickness and length.

Or how about this: Smith-Waters-Dawson-Shine-Carroll. That five would be fun as hell, with all five players being between 6-3 and 6-6. Maybe you can’t afford to do this against Texas’ and Kansas’ bigs, but regardless, Boynton should probably be coaching a little outside the box this year anyway.

OSU is going to be an underdog in probably every Big 12 road game it plays and a handful of home games, too. This gives you the freedom to experiment and take a few chances you might not take in Year 4 or Year 6. Maybe injuries and guys sitting out will force this. Maybe it won’t be such a bad thing at all.