Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State Basketball’s 99-89 Loss to New Mexico

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STILLWATER — Well, that’s certainly not the ideal start to hoops in Gallagher-Iba Arena this school year.

Oklahoma State opened its exhibition schedule with an early game against New Mexico on Sunday afternoon. The Lobos beat the Cowboys 99-89. Here are five takeaways from the game.

1. It Looked Like Early October Basketball

If this game was streaming anywhere, it’d have to come with a viewer discretion is advised warning.

The contest featured 63 personal fouls, 82 attempted free throws and 27 total turnovers.

All of a sudden a game that was labeled an exhibition took two and a half hours.

2. A Lobo Went Loco

Three freshmen have made the All-Mountain West First Team — Kahwi Leonard, No. 1 NBA Draft pick Anthony Bennett and New Mexico’s Jake Hall.

It doesn’t seem as if Hall, now a sophomore Lobo, is slowing down, as he had 20 points less than 10 minutes into this game.

Hall finished with 31 on just nine shots, going 8-for-9 from the field, 6-for-7 from 3 and 9-for-10 from the stripe.

Not an ideal start in shutting down an opposing star player.

3. Freshman Anthony Felesi Had a Solid Cowboy Debut

OSU freshman Anthony Felesi was a bright spot in an otherwise gross 40 minutes of basketball.

Listed at 6-foot-5, the uber-athletic Felesi finished with a team-high 18 points on 8-for-13 shooting to go with six boards (one away from a team-high) in 28 minutes.

The athleticism that his coaches and teammates talk about was on full display on some of those rebounds, as Felesi would soar in with his head about a foot above everyone else’s.

Most of his scoring came either at the rim. He was also 2-for-4 from the foul line and 0-for-2 from 3. He has a nice pump fake down low that he utilized on a few occassions to get the defender in the air before he’d coolly lay it in.

4. Cowboys Were Without Some Bodies

Jordan Burks, Mekhi Ragland and Parsa Fallah were all in street clothes for this one.

Fallah tore his ACL late last season and is still on the road to recovery, but he was moving around without crutches or anything.

OSU coach Steve Lutz said Burks being held out was more precautionary than anything.

Meanwhile, starting point guard Kanye Clary played only 13 first-half minutes before a groin pull ended his day.

Burks and Clary in particular will be a big piece to what this team becomes. Fallah, too, given he can get up to speed at some point after the injury.

5. New Mexico Looks to be a Solid Team, but the Result Was Not Ideal

How much should you buy into an exhibition basketball game that was played on Oct. 11? Only you can answer that question, but the optics certainly aren’t ideal.

Last week, New Mexico was picked to win the Mountain West, so it’s not like the Cowboys allowed 99 points to a run-in-the-mill mid-major, but if you’re an OSU fan, you probably would hope that your team could handle a Mountain West squad no matter its preseason expectation.

There’s a world where — like the football team losing to Tulsa — this could provide a spark of motivation for the Cowboys. There’s still nearly a month before they play a game that counts.

“Sometimes you gotta get smacked in the face, and you gotta come out on the wrong side of it to be able to take accountability of you and your play,” Lutz said. “This certainly will be an opportunity to do that. We’ve gotta study the tape, and we’ve gotta get better.”