Hoops Notebook: VJ Miller’s Status for Bedlam, OSU’s Room for Improvement

STILLWATER — Bedlam always brings stakes, but this weekend’s Bedlam matchup feels like the most significant game of the series in some time.

Unbeaten Oklahoma State plays 6-3 Oklahoma at noon on Saturday in the Paycom Center (televised on FOX).

When the AP Poll updated this week, the Cowboys were in the receiving votes category, just two spots out of the Top 25. Should they win Saturday, it feels almost a certainty that the Cowboys would be ranked for the first time since Cade Cunningham was hooping in Gallagher-Iba Arena with people six feet apart from one another.

OSU coach Steve Lutz met with reporters Tuesday afternoon to preview the matchup. We’ll have coverage from his news conference throughout the rest of the week, but here are three quick things the Cowboys’ coach said. You can watch his full interview below.

Miller a Game-Time Decision for Bedlam

The Cowboys’ leading scorer missed OSU’s game in Phoenix, but he could be back for Bedlam.

Sophomore LSU transfer Vyctorius Miller left the Cowboys’ Dec. 2 game against Sam Houston with an apparent foot/ankle injury and didn’t return. He made the trip to the desert with the Cowboys this past weekend, going through some of warmups and even suiting up but ended up sitting out, getting some more time to recover.

He was labeled as a game-time decision for that game against Grand Canyon, and Lutz said Tuesday that Miller will carry that game-time decision tag into Bedlam this weekend.

“I hope VJ’s gonna play,” Lutz said. “He’s always gonna be a game-time decision, but I hope that VJ’s gonna play.”

Miller is averaging a team-best 15.9 points a game this season — a number that actually took a bit of a hit after he exited that Sam Houston game after playing only nine minutes.

He has eclipsed the 20-point threshold three times in eight games, including a 30-point performance against Prairie View A&M on Nov. 12.

Miller is shooting 57% from the field this season and 50% from 3 on 32 attempts.

Defense and Rebounding

If you’re ranking the Cowboys’ nine wins on a prettiness scale, that trip to Phoenix might be at the bottom of the list.

Lutz said there were positives to be taken from it being a win, but he again harped on the Cowboys’ need to get better defensively. OSU was also outrebounded for the first time this season in that game, another thing the Cowboys’ coach wasn’t thrilled about.

“If you’d have told me on Dec. 9 that you’d be 9-0 and heading into Bedlam, certainly all of us would’ve taken bet and we’d have ran with it and we’d be very, very happy,” Lutz said. “With that being said, I still think this team has a large, large, large area for growth defensively. If  we can do that, I think we’re gonna have an opportunity to be a contender in the Big 12. That’s where our emphasis lies on a daily basis. …

“The lack of defense, being outrebounded and giving (Grand Canyon) 12 more shots attempts is a recipe for disaster in the Big 12 — and against Oklahoma on Saturday. A lot of times, you’ll say, ‘Hey, the biggest opponent you have is yourself,’ and a lot of days I believe that with this group is that we’ve gotta concentrate on being the best we can be. If we’ll be the best that we can be every single day, we’re gonna give ourselves an opportunity to win, but again, that’s a fight within ourselves.”

OSU is 9-0 despite its coach saying the team still has a lot of room to grow. In some ways that’s exciting, but as the competition starts to heat up, you wonder when some of these things that Lutz has harped on are going to bite the Pokes.

On Christian Coleman’s Bounce Back

Christian Coleman didn’t play during the second half of OSU’s win against Sam Houston last week.

In the postgame news conference, I hardly got the question asking why that was out when Lutz bluntly stated “coach’s decision.”

Well, Coleman bounced back from that benching during the Cowboys’ game in the desert. He played 23 minutes, where he scored 16 points on 7-for-11 shooting while tying with Parsa Fallah with a team-high six rebounds.

Two of Coleman’s points came via a transition dunk over an Antelope, where Coleman received one of the softer technical fouls in I’ve seen in some time.

OH MY @cc_1era 😱

📺: CBS Sports Network pic.twitter.com/2rcLoKGrai

— OSU Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) December 7, 2025

“I thought Christian played well,” Lutz said. “When Christian plays with a great attitude and effort and smiles and is active, man, he’s as good as any forward out there. But there’s some days he’s human. There’s some days that we don’t, maybe, play our best, and we’ve gotta bottle up those days, and we’ve gotta have more good days than bad days.

“I’m happy for him, and I’m happy for our team because we’re certainly a better team when he plays the way he does.”