How Keiton Page Turned into an International Recruiter Following Challenge from Steve Lutz

STILLWATER — Keiton Page always wanted to coach basketball, but even he wasn’t sure how long that career path would allow him to stay in Stillwater.

Yet, 13 years and four head coaches later, Page remains right at home in Gallagher-Iba Arena.

“Your hope and your dream is, obviously, that you could coach at your alma mater,” Page said. “So I’ve been really, really fortunate, obviously, with all the different coaches that have come through here, I’ve been really blessed and fortunate to be able to stick and stay at a place where I love.”

Page hasn’t just stuck. Each new head coach challenged Page with either a new role or responsibility, and that remained true when Steve Lutz took over in the spring of 2024.

“Keaton, when I walked into the job, really kind of his niche was Oklahoma,” Lutz said. “Maybe a little bit of Arkansas, maybe a little bit of Kansas City, you know that (stuff). So he didn’t have a wide reach recruiting-wise.”

Lutz told him that had to change. He needed Page to expand his network.

“I felt like we had a hole there in international recruiting,” Lutz said. “And I said, hey, the only way you can do this is to jump in with both feet. Figure it out. And obviously, I recruited overseas quite a bit for a long time, and so I give him my contacts, and he follows up. And you give him your contacts, and eventually he builds his network, and so he’s done a good job. It’s no different than recruiting a young man from Dallas or from Oklahoma City or from Tulsa. It’s constant, it’s persistence, it’s follow-up, and it’s building a relationship.”

Page’s efforts certainly seem to be paying dividends.

Both Daniel Guetta (Israel) and Lefteris Mantzoukas (Greece) mentioned Page by name when asked why they signed up to be Cowboys.

While those are the only Cowboys brand new to America, there are five players this season with international roots including returning Cowboy Andrija Vukovic (Serbia), Oregon State transfer Parsa Fallah (Iran) and freshman Benjamin Ahmed (Nigeria).

Ahmed missed the Auburn exhibition because of an injury, but the other four internationals combined to finish with 13% of points, 29% of rebounds and 36% of the team’s minutes in the win over Auburn. Of that group, Mantzoukas led the way in points (7) and minutes (24) while finishing second in rebounds (4) behind Fallah’s five.

“Coach, Keiton, at first, he approached me, and he came to Greece,” Mantzoukas said. “I felt this a good opportunity for me to see something different, of course, and to excel my game in a lot of different kind of ways.”

International recruiting is gaining prominence with the addition of revenue share. Lutz said the European market isn’t what it once was for some of those international guys. So, there is a growing importance of having a guy recruit overseas.

“There’s no difference being the foreign recruiter,” Page said. “Recruiting is the same whether there’s eight hours time difference or not. You just may have to get up a little earlier to get on the phone with those guys. It’s been nice.

“I was a little, obviously, apprehensive, I guess to say, in the beginning about traveling overseas as much, but it’s been great. It obviously opens up a whole new world of recruiting.”