Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 89-76 Victory against Green Bay

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STILLWATER — The Steve Lutz era started with a high-octane win.

Oklahoma State beat Doug Gottlieb’s Green Bay 89-76 on Monday night in Gallagher-Iba Arena. Here are five thoughts on the game.

1. Fast, Fun Basketball

It was one thing to see the numbers of Lutz’s up-tempo style. It was another to see it in live action.

The Cowboys had 72 possessions on Monday night. I wanted to apply some sort of context to that, so I went back and looked at all of OSU’s games from last November. In that stretch, OSU averaged 68 possessions a game. So, it’s not a overwhelming difference when just looking at the numbers, but that included one game of 75 possessions and another of 60. So there was quite a bit of variance.

There was a stretch in the second half in particular where the Pokes were pushing the tempo. There was a 7-0 run midway through the half that saw Marchelus “Chi Chi” Avery hit a jumper, Davonte “Devo” Davis (they go by their nicknames) make a layup and Abou Ousmane convert an and-one in the span of a minute and 22 seconds.

As fast as it seemed, Lutz didn’t sound totally satisfied with the pace postgame.

“Obviously, they ran a 1-2-2 and tried to slow us down, and they did to an extent at some point,” Lutz said. “I think we still finished with 89 points, which is pretty good when he’s running a junk defense zone, trying to slow us down, those sorts of things. I thought our guys were aggressive, but even against the zone press, man, we want to get the ball reversed one time, and then we want to come on an angle and we want to be pushing the basketball. We don’t just want to settle for reversing it two or three times and being OK with getting it across (the halfcourt line). We want to get it across with tempo and pace and aggressiveness. We’ve gotta get better in that regard.”

2. The Bryce Thompson Season?

Bryce Thompson was efficient and dominant in the Cowboys’ charity scrimmage win against SMU, and he was efficient and dominant in the win Monday night.

Thompson finished with a team-high 22 points by going 9-for-13 from the field and 4-for-5 from deep. This comes after he put up 24 against SMU (in a game that doesn’t count) on 9-for-12 shooting from the field and a perfect 5-for-5 from 3.

Shooting 90% from 3 is an unrealistic expectation, but the tempo of Lutz’s system looks likely to give Thompson some good looks if Monday was anything to base it on. This team is swimming in guard depth (which we’ll get to), but Thompson appears to be the alpha when it comes to scoring, and he has plenty of playmakers to find him. When his hand goes up in the air calling for a ball, it isn’t long until Davis, Khalil Brantley or Arturo Dean get the ball to him.

What’s perhaps more impressive is that this is coming off a major shoulder injury. Lutz said after the game that Thompson didn’t really start doing a whole lot until September. Perhaps no one was more impressed with Thompson than Gottlieb.

“Just as a guy who was around this team last year, I have a ton of respect and pride in Bryce Thompson,” Gottlieb said. “It’s been a long journey for him, and he kind of developed a little bit of that hitch in the shot. Man, he’s playing confident basketball. He’s taking good shots. He’s playing good defense. It’s really, really hard, I think, to be a McDonald’s All-American and the only one still in college. Like, ‘What are you still doing here?’ But that guy’s gonna make a lot of money playing professional basketball whether it’s here or overseas. As a guy who was around him last year, I know how negative it can get when things aren’t going well. He should have a lot of pride in how he’s playing.”

3. Gottlieb Coaches in GIA

After years and years of discourse about Gottlieb potentially becoming a college basketball coach, it finally officially happened Monday, and it was pretty cool.

And Gottlieb’s Phoenix were in it. They led much of the first half and trailed by a lone point at the break. Like Lutz, Gottlieb has nearly built his roster from scratch. He brought in Anthony Roy, who played at Langston last season, and Roy appears to be a player. He put up 27 on the Cowboys, going 7-for-13 from 3.

Gottlieb was greeted with cheers but said there were some fans behind him making sure he knew he was a visitor on this day.

His coaching acumen won’t be defined by this first game. He referenced a few times postgame he wishes he would’ve called a timeout in the second half and that he left some guys in too long, tiring them out against a physical OSU squad. But his Phoenix hung in there and could surprise a few teams in the Horizon League.

4. Game-Winning Stats

Both teams on Monday shot 45% from 3, and Green Bay actually outshot the Pokes from the field, going 49% to the Cowboys’ 42%. Yet the Cowboys won by 13. How? Turnovers, offensive rebounds and free throws.

Lutz was far from happy with his team’s defense Monday. He almost didn’t let a question get all the way out about it before saying it was “bad.”

“You can not give up 58% (in the first half) and think you’re gonna win games no matter what,” Lutz said.

Still, Lutz’s Cowboys forced 19 turnovers and turned those into 27 points.

The Cowboys aren’t the biggest team, and Green Bay is far from the biggest team they’ll play this year (the Phoenix ran a 6-foot-6 guy at center for long stretches). But, OSU ripped down 19 offensive rebounds. That’s four more than it did in any game last season, and converted those into 20 second-chance points. Lutz said he wants the conversion rate of offensive boards to second-chance points to be higher, but still, 20 points is nothing to sneeze at. I’m intrigued by the work on the offensive glass, but because OSU lacks size, I’ll need some more examples before I’m all the way on board there.

But what OSU fans might already be excited about is the fact that the Cowboys went 21-for-24 from the foul line. That’s 88%. Only twice last season did OSU shoot better than 85% from the line when it took more than five attempts in a game.

5. The Cowboys Appear to be Swimming in Guard Depth

I was bullish on the Cowboys’ guard depth, and after seeing it live, I’m just as bullish.

Lutz played seven guards at least 10 minutes. Jamyron Keller, who we all think is pretty good, got the fewest of that group of seven with 11 minutes. With the tempo Lutz demands, having that many able bodies running at teams seems like it would be a big benefit.

Brantley and Dean are each super twitchy. Davis can do it all. Thompson looks to be in peak scoring form. And that’s not to mention Newman, who has played under Lutz at two different stops, and Keller, who is only a sophomore and has shown to be a capable Big 12 player.

Thompson will get the headlines this week because of his scoring, but Davis poured in 10 and hit a pair of 3s after having just four games with multiple 3-point makes last season. Dean wasn’t as efficient as he’d probably have liked shooting (scoring eight points while going 2-for-9), but he pulled down seven rebounds (all 5-foot-11 of him) and had a trio of assists. Brantley is a bona fide scorer with a dozen 20-point games under his belt, and he added four assists and three rebounds.

I think more often than not Thompson will lead the group in scoring, but his second-in-command could be any of those other guys on any given night and just about all of them can create, play defense and run the floor. It looks to be a lot of fun to watch.

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