Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 93-83 Victory against Sam Houston

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STILLWATER — The Cowboys found themselves in a dogfight against a team that is better than many would expect, but Parsa Fallah showed he was the alpha dog late.

Oklahoma State beat Sam Houston 93-83 on Tuesday night in Gallagher-Iba Arena to advance to 8-0 on the year.

The Cowboys found themselves trailing 44-37 at the half. The Steve Lutz butt chewing must have been biblical because the Cowboys took a big chunk out of the Bearkats’ shooting percentages in the second half and kept up the offensive firepower to secure the win.

Here are five thoughts on the game.

1. Parsa Takeover

Iranian big man Parsa Fallah took this game over.

The Oregon State transfer finished with 24 points on 13 shots to go with seven boards and a trio of steals. Fallah had 17 points in the second half, including four points in the final minute that put the Bearkats away.

He hit a shot with about 57 seconds left that hung on the rim long enough for GIA to grow eerily silent before it rolled the right way, sending the crowd into a frenzy.

Fallah has been a rock for this team throughout the early portions, but Tuesday was his most in-your-face type of game. Sam Houston didn’t have an answer for him. He scored in double figures in six of OSU’s seven games entering Tuesday night, but this marked his first time eclipsing the 20-point mark in a Cowboy uniform.

“Shoot, I like everything about Parsa,” Lutz said. “He’s been our most consistent player pretty much night in, night out. … Night in, night out, day in, day out in 44 practices, Parsa has been the most consistent person. He shows up every day, he pulls his shorts up, he laces up his shoes, he smiles and he goes out there and competes. We’ve got some other people on the team that need to adopt that philosophy, adopt that personality because it’s just gonna carry you a long ways to success in life.

“Man, I’m proud of Parsa. Parsa deserves everything he gets because he doesn’t complain. He doesn’t show his face. He doesn’t ever, ever not think about the team first. He does it every single day.”

2. Roy, Clary, Mantzoukas Contribute in Different Ways

Similar to his second-half burst in Chicago on Thanksgiving, Anthony Roy went on a microwave run midway through the first half that saw him score 12 of his 20 points in the matter of about six minutes. He also had eight rebounds and five assists in his 32 minutes.

In a back-and-forth game that ended in a 10-point OSU win, point guard Kanye Clary finished +20, meaning the Cowboys were 20 points better than the Bearkats in Clary’s 27 minutes on the floor. He also chipped in 14 points on six shots and had six assists.

Lastly, Lefteris Manzoukas finished with a game-high 11 rebounds, including a few late that he really had to go up and fight for. He didn’t have his most efficient offensive outing, scoring seven points on 3-for-10 shooting, but he trailed only Clary in plus/minus at +10.

3. Defense Is a Concern and Sam Houston Couldn’t Miss

If you’ve listened to Steve Lutz at all throughout the early part of this season, you might not know his team is unbeaten. Lutz has, let’s say, not been thrilled about where the Cowboys are at on the defensive end.

“I know I’m preaching to the choir, we scored 93 points — I get it,” Lutz said. “But, Kelvin Sampson, T.J. Otzelberger, they ain’t gonna let us score 93 points. So we’ve gotta prepare to win in the league that matters. And again, I’m happy that we won this game, but we’ve gotta prepare to win in the Big 12. And tonight, the first half defense, it wasn’t good enough.”

Sam Houston went into halftime with a 44-37 lead thanks to the Bearcats shooting 49% from the field and 50% (11-for-22) from 3-point range. Shooting 50% from 3 can be tough to do on air, but the defense was poor.

The Cowboys locked in better in the second half, outscoring Sam Houston 56-39 and holding the Bearcats to 37% shooting from the field and 20% from 3. But OSU just hasn’t put a full 40 minutes together yet on the defensive end of the floor.

“I thought when the chips were down in the second half, our team was better defensively, but we’ve got a long way to go in order to be successful in the Big 12 on the defensive end,” Lutz said.

4. Miller Goes Down, Doesn’t Return

I’ve gotten tweets since the end of Tuesday’s game offering ankles should Vyctorius Miller need a spare.

Miller hobbled off the floor early in Tuesday’s game grabbing at his right ankle/foot area. He didn’t return to the action but did get back on the bench and seemed to walk well in and out of timeout huddles.

Lutz didn’t have an update on Miller after the game, but the Cowboys will hope to get him back as soon as possible, as the sophomore LSU transfer entered the night as OSU’s leading scorer at 17.4 points per game.

5. 8-0

These #-0 stats throughout this run have been fun to follow but haven’t really gone back all that far … until now.

Oklahoma State is 8-0 for the first time since the 2006-07 (6-7, get it?) season. That was Sean Sutton’s first year as the Cowboys head coach. A Travis Ford-led team never started like these, Brad Underwood’s team didn’t start like this and Mike Boynton’s teams never started like this.

Getting to 9-0 and 10-0 will be tough, as both of those games will come in NBA arenas. The Cowboys travel to Phoenix to play Grand Canyon on Saturday at Mortgage Matchup Center — the home of the Phoenix Suns. GCU has made the NCAA Tournament in four of Bryce Drew’s first five seasons.

Then if the Cowboys can get past the Antelopes, they’ll take on Bedlam rival Oklahoma in Paycom for a shot at 10-0. The scenes would be immaculate.

Steve Lutz’s Postgame News Conference

Highlights

Up Next

Opponent: Grand Canyon
Time: 6:30p.m. (CT) Saturday
Location: Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix