Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 89-79 NIT Victory against Wichita State

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The Cowboys get to keep playing basketball.

Oklahoma State beat Wichita State 89-79 on Tuesday night in the first round of the NIT. Here are five thoughts from the game.

1. Weird Game

At two different points it felt like the Cowboys were about to run the Shockers out of the gym just for things to get a little uncomfy for the orange-clad faithful.

OSU was up 15 points with 4:42 to play in the first half, leading 37-22. But Wichita State closed the half on a 13-3 run and then took a lead two minutes into the second half.

The teams battled back and forth for 10 or so minutes before the Pokes made their next push. OSU went on a 15-2 run midway through the half that built up a 67-54 lead. The Shockers never really threatened again, but after seeing a 15-point lead evaporate, there was some tension in the building when the Shockers pushed it into single digits a few times in the final minutes.

2. Thompson Starts Hot

It looked for a while that Bryce Thompson was going to be the only Cowboy to score against the Shockers, as he had OSU’s first 10 points.

He put it to the Shockers early, finishing the first half with 19 points on 8-for-12 shooting. The water found its level a bit in the second half, where Thompson scored four points on 0-for-5 shooting, but his 5-for-5 start was crucial for the Pokes because the rest of the team missed its first five shots.

Thompson also finished with a career-high five steals, something he didn’t notice until Lutz pointed it out in the postgame news conference. He took the box score Lutz had and started laughing.

“Felt great, man,” Thompson said. “I was just in the right spot a couple times and just playing good defense, that’s it — trying to.”

3. Keller, Brantley Pick Up the 3-Point Slack

The guard duo of Jamyron Keller and Khalil Brantley entered Tuesday night combining to make 1.2 3-pointers a game this season, but without the Cowboys’ most prolific 3-point threat, those two picked up the slack.

Keller and Brantley combined to go 6-for-7 from long range, with Keller hitting four and Brantley adding the other two. Chi Chi Avery had 56 3-point makes this season (most on the team by more than 20) but has elected to opt out of the NIT, Lutz said after the game.

One of only a few Cowboys with eligibility that extends past this season, Keller finished with a dozen points thanks to his 4-for-4 night from 3. Brantley also had a dozen, and he added five rebounds and four assists. Brantley was a game-best +24, meaning the Pokes were 24 points better than the Shockers in Brantley’s 22 minutes.

“I thought Jamyron had some good looks and shot it with confidence,” Lutz said, “and I thought the same of Khalil.”

4. Lots of Small Ball

Without their 6-foot-8 stretch forward, the Cowboys relied on a lot of guard play.

Starting power forward Robert Jennings is also going through some sort of hip injury that Lutz said might require surgery after the season. Jennings still played Tuesday, but recorded only 10 minutes. He hasn’t played more than 15 minutes since OSU’s March 1 game against Baylor.

So for those reasons, a lot of time Tuesday was spent with one of Abou Ousmane, Patrick Suemnick or Andrija Vukovic playing center with four of Thompson, Keller, Brantley, Brandon Newman or Arturo Dean.

The Shockers rebound the ball well from a few different spots, but even down some size, the Cowboys were able to outrebound Wichita State 46-42. OSU ripped down 17 offensive rebounds and put up 21 second-chance points.

“Obviously your worry as the coach is when you lose someone like Chi Chi, who is a pretty good rebounder, that you’re gonna get beat on the backboards, but tonight I thought we did it as a committee,” Lutz said. “I thought Brandon Newman was fantastic, and I thought all those guys did a good job of just banding together and rebounding the ball.

“We still run a lot of the same actions, you’re just putting in different people in different positions.”

Newman seemed to thrive in the small ball. He had a 10-point, 12-rebound double-double. He scored his last two points at the foul line, and to get those shots, he grabbed two offensive rebounds in the same possession before drawing a foul.

“I didn’t want our season to be over, so I just went out there and played hard,” Newman said. “We knew coming into this game they were a good rebounding team, so I took the challenge on.”

5. Good Perspective from Wichita State Coach Paul Mills

It’s been long week for the Stillwater community after Friday’s fires burned through the southwest side of town.

Longtime OSU assistant Scott Sutton lost his house in the fires. Wichita State coach Paul Mills took over for Sutton at Oral Roberts, where Sutton is the program’s all-time winningest coach.

Mills said he spoke with Sutton on this trip back to Oklahoma.

“I’ll tell you what was special,” Mills said, “I got a chance to talk to Scott Sutton for a while, and he’s obviously the all-time winningest coach at ORU.

“I just don’t know how many people would have their house burn down and keep a smile on their face. He just talked about how blessed he was. The things that they were able to rescue and how they had a number of people go back. They were able to find their wedding rings of he and his wife. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate that of just people who deal with really difficult circumstances, and then they do it from a perspective of it’s a positive.

“It’s not hard to complain. Any idiot in the world can complain. That’s not difficult to do. What is difficult to do is turn around and find solutions because it speaks to the caliber of person that you are.”

Postgame News Conference