RECAP
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STILLWATER — Down go the Cyclones.

Oklahoma State upset No. 9 Iowa State 74-69 on Tuesday night in Gallagher-Iba Arena. Here are five thoughts on the game.

1. Steve Lutz’s Gets His Signature Win

Earlier this week, I went and looked at the first seasons of the five OSU basketball coaches since Eddie Sutton, and it made me realize that Lutz’s squad didn’t exactly have a signature win ala Boynton’s first team in Lawrence. Well, all I had to do was wait a few hours.

This was OSU’s first win against a team in the top 10 of the AP Poll since the Cowboys beat No. 1 Baylor on Jan. 15, 2022. The Cyclones are legit, too. They have three top 10 wins just this season.

The cool part about this win is that it was Lutz ball through and through. The Cowboys forced Iowa State into 18 turnovers and had a 22-9 advantage in fastbreak points. On a night where the Cowboys shot just 26% from 3, they upset a top 10 team by just outworking the Cyclones.

“Obviously a heck of a night for the program, a heck of a night for the players,” Lutz said. “I’m extremely happy for them. Obviously we’ve had some ups and downs throughout the season. To see them rewarded for their hard work and their effort and for all that they’ve been through, it’s a fun night. It’s a fun night. I’m excited and happy for them.”

Going nutz pic.twitter.com/wURcE2HdRW

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) February 26, 2025

2. Arturo Dean Is That Guy

If you’ve read throughout this season that I’m sure hasn’t been all that fun to read about, you’ll know that I’ve collected quite the treasure-trove of Arturo Dean stock, and now it’s at an all-time high.

Dean had seven steals on Tuesday. He also had 14 points, but I think the steals number is more impressive. Bryce Thompson nearly stopped the postgame news conference when he was scanning through the box score and exclaimed, “You had seven steals? Oooooooooh!” It wasn’t even a career-high. Dean had a 10-steal game against Florida Gulf Coast last season while at Florida International. The game after that he had seven steals against Long Island University.

He’ll make a mistake every now and again, but he just works so hard that it’s tough to not get behind him. On a few occasions Tuesday he straight up took the ball away from Cyclone point guard Tamin Lipsey, who has been one of the Big 12’s better point guards the past two seasons.

Dean seems to be coming into his own on the offensive end, too. Tuesday was his eighth game this season in double figures, and he hit some big shots. His jumper with 54 seconds left was his biggest. The Cowboys drained the shot clock and ran a pick-and-roll for Dean, who got to his spot, rose and hit. It gave OSU an eight-point lead.

His most-impressive bucket from a “how the heck?” standpoint came in the first half when off a Thompson feed, Dean, standing at 5-foot-11, drove the lane and contorted his body around a 6-foot-11 Dishon Jackson and banked in a layup that defied physics.

.@ArturoDean12 with the ₖᵢₛₛ off the glass 😙🤌 pic.twitter.com/LMvPXHJrsq

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) February 26, 2025

Another good note on Dean: he is eligible to return to next season’s squad. He’s a junior, one of just five scholarship players who isn’t a some sort of senior.

“The feeling was just surreal and amazing,” Dean said. “The students coming out and showing their support was phenomenal. It was great.”

3. Is Abou Ousmane This Team’s Second-Best 3-Point Shooter?

I say second because about twice a game Chi Chi Avery pulls from the logo on shots you think “What the heck is he doing?” only for the ball to missile through the net.

But Abou Ousmane dropped 25 on the Cyclones and went 3-for-5 from 3-point range. Outside of him, the Cowboys were 3-for-18 from deep.

He’s now 15-for-30 from 3 on the season. Coming into the year, he had taken only six 3s in his entire career and made just one of those. After his third 3 on Tuesday night, Ousmane signaled over to the OSU bench, where Lutz just gave him a shrug.

“I didn’t want him to shoot the third,” Lutz said. “The one he made on No. 3, I was like, ‘Mmmmm.’ That’s one of those ones when they make it, kind of like Chi Chi. You’ll see my face sometimes I’m like, ‘No, no, no,’ and he makes it, and I’m like, ‘Alright, pal, good job.’ But that one wasn’t in the flow. His other ones were in the flow.”

Ousmane was fantastic. His 25 points came off just 11 shots, as he went 8-for-8 from the line (another example as to why he might be one of the better shooters on the team). He brought down six rebounds and was active defensively, nabbing four steals.

His slickest bucket of the night wasn’t one of his 3s, though. Early in the first half, Ousmane was double-teamed in the corner, but he coolly just brought the ball over his head, took a dribble and soared in for a Statue of Liberty jam.

WITH AUTHORITY@IamAbouOusmane https://t.co/z1TdR4zCqZ pic.twitter.com/6c4Vuvj0uz

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) February 26, 2025

“He’s worked extremely hard,” Lutz said. “If you go look at his stats throughout college, his free-throw shooting and his 3-point shooting has really improved. And I give that as a testament No. 1 to him because he’s worked his tail off, but also to the staff. I mean, we put a lot of time and effort into skill development. We put a lot of time and effort into shooting. Like if you’ll think back, think about the times over the course of the summer where we were leading the country every week in number of shots made.

“I just believe in the process of all that. You continue to do it and continue to do it, and you get rewarded at the end.”

4. OSU Sort of Owns Iowa State on the Hardwood

Across the past four seasons, the Cyclones have been in the top 11 of the AP Poll in each season, but the Pokes sort of own them.

OSU has now won eight of its past 10 meetings against the Cyclones going back to the 2019-20 season. One of those two Cyclone wins came in overtime. It’s odd that an OSU team that has made the NCAA Tournament just once in that time has had the number of a consistently good team like Iowa State.

5. This Team Keeps Fighting

Whenever the Cowboys have a home game after a 20-point loss, they’re 3-0. They just won’t stay down.

Lose by 28 in Manhattan? Come back home and beat Utah. Lose by 38 to Texas Tech? Hang 104 on UCF. Lose by 32 in Lawrence? Upset the No. 9 Cyclones.

It’s a lot of these guys’ final seasons of college basketball, and that experience probably helps them ride the ups and downs of a season.

The Cowboys would need a Hail Mary to make the NCAA Tournament, but if they were going to quit, it would’ve probably happened by now. It’s a testament to the players and coaches that no matter what happened in the previous game, they keep answering the bell.

“We had two great days of practice,” Ousmane said. “Energy was still high. Everybody looked like they wanted to be there. Especially coming into this game today, everybody was just locked in on the go. Played defense and everything else was gonna take care of itself.”