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Instacap: Oklahoma State Defeats Marquette 70-62

The Cowboys moved to 3-0 on the road.

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[Photo via Courtney Bay, Oklahoma State Athletics]

Oklahoma State represented its league well in the Big East/Big 12 Battle, topping Marquette 70-62 on the road thanks in large part to its newcomers and a couple of salty adjustments by its head coach.

The Cowboys were able to cruise victory in the waning moments in Milwaukee, but first the Cowboys had to overcome an early double-digit deficit fueled by turnovers and sloppy play.

OSU took a 4-2 lead with 18:15 showing on the clock, and then it got ugly. The Golden Eagles rattled off a 12-0 run spurred almost exclusively by seven OSU turnovers.

Marquette was able to turn those turns into points, and the Cowboys looked out of sorts. But during a media timeout midway through the first half, Mike Boynton switched to a three-quarter court press and a zone defense, and he saw immediate positive results.

When the Cowboys came out of that timeout they were down 19-7. The defensive switch knocked Marquette out of its rhythm and turned the tables on turnovers. All of the sudden, it was the Golden Eagles would couldn’t hold onto the ball, and the Cowboys made them pay in transition. A 15-0 run by the visitors ensued, and it was a tight one the rest of the period. Marquette took a 35-32 advantage into intermission.

Boynton made another nice adjustment coming out of halftime. After foul trouble kept Cade Cunningham on the pine and out of rhythm in the first half, OSU made a point to get its freshman phenom the ball in the post early in the second and ran its offense through Cade.

A lot of the talk coming in revolved around OSU’s lack of size compared to Marquette’s massive front court. But it was the Pokes’ length and zone defense frustrated and stifled Marquette leading to the Golden Eagles shooting 8-of-31 from the field in the final frame. The Cowboys took advantage of 11 second half Marquette turnovers and turned them into 19 points.

And the undersized Pokes didn’t seem too worried about the bigger Golden Eagles’ post players.

Three OSU newcomers scored in double digits led by 16 from Rondel Walker. In 26 minutes, Walker went 4-of-9 from the field and had more and-1s (three) than personal fouls (two).

Cade Cunningham didn’t lead the Cowboys in scoring for the first time in his short college career, turning in a season-low 15 points (albeit in just three games), but he made his value apparent elsewhere. Cunningham filled up the sheet with six rebounds, three steals and two assists. He played some quality defense as well.

But Cade knew when he needed to get his and he had little trouble doing so.

In his OSU debut against Texas Southern, Bryce Williams didn’t attempt a field goal. On Tuesday night the Ole Miss transfer knocked down three 3s. He was 4-for-8 overall from the field, scoring 13 points while adding four assists and four steals.

Oklahoma State went on the road against a quality opponent and was able to dig itself out of an early hole. That says a lot. Their game was far from perfect, but the Cowboys showed some plenty of resiliency to go with their exciting young talent.

Next up the Cowboys are back in Stillwater to host Oakland on 6:30 p.m. Saturday.

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