Jalen Montonati Commits to Oklahoma State

An Oklahoma State legacy and the best high school basketball player in the state of Oklahoma will be a Cowboy.

Jalen Montonati announced his commitment to OSU on Thursday. He ranks as the No. 44 player in the country, according to ESPN, and chose Steve Lutz and the Cowboys over offers from Kansas, Indiana, USC, Michigan, Houston, Alabama, Oklahoma, Tennessee and others. Montonati is scheduled to be in Stillwater this weekend for his official visit.

There’s only one… pic.twitter.com/lbStV9w3Ns

— Jalen Montonati (@JalenMontonati) September 25, 2025

“I just feel so loved by the whole coaching staff, whole fanbase, really,” Montonati told CBS Sports’ Travis Branham. “They’ve known me ever since I was about how tall (my little brother) is, so just the support that they’ve showed me since Coach Lutz has got the job. He contacted me the day after he got it. I’ve been building a relationship with him ever since, the whole coaching staff. It’s just really welcoming and really cool to see that they made me their priority in this class, especially in today’s day and age where a lot of coaches are so focused on the portal and older guys. It was really cool to see that they were focused on a high school kid such as myself.”

“It just feels like home, and I’m ready to get Oklahoma State back to its glory days.”

Montonati is the son of former OSU player Brian Montonati. Brian played for the Cowboys from 1997 to 2000 under Eddie Sutton. He started 34 games as a senior, averaging 12.1 points, 7.2 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.4 steals a game.

Brian now coaches Jalen at Owasso High School, where the father-son tandem helped lead the Rams to their first state championship in basketball in 2024. In the state final that year, Jalen scored 34 points.

Jalen is already a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of Oklahoma, earning the honor as a sophomore and a junior. As a sophomore at Owasso, Montonati averaged 23.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.4 assists a game. As a junior, he tallied 23.3 points, six rebounds and three assists a game. His senior season hasn’t started yet, and he’s already scored more than 1,500 points in a Rams uniform.

If Montonati wins Gatorade Player of the Year again this year, he’d be Oklahoma’s first three-time winner for boy’s basketball. The only other two-time winners are Bryce Thompson, Trae Young, Shake Milton, Stevie Clark, Xavier Henry, Sheldon Williams and Brandon Loyd.

Oklahoma State was the first program to offer the younger Montonati, doing so under Mike Boynton back in 2022 when Montonati had just started his freshman year at Owasso. But even after the staff change, Lutz has continued to make Montonati a priority. Lutz reportedly met with Montonati at midnight when the recent recruiting period opened, and not long after that Lutz took to X that he was in Owasso “on the hunt for the future of Cowboy Basketball.”

“The day after he got the job, he called me and talked to me and stated how important I was to play for OSU, put that jersey across my chest,” Montonati said. “Just building a relationship with him. He knows the type of player that I am right now and the type of player I can become and how I can impact winning from Day 1 and just bring a winner’s mentality to the program and help him turn the culture back around in Stillwater.”

Listed at 6-foot-7, Montonati is a skilled wing. Playing for MOKAN Elite on Nike’s EYBL circuit, he averaged 15.8 points, two rebounds and 2.8 assists a game at Peach Jam, the premier AAU tournament of the summer. He shot 38% from 3-point range at the event.

In an EYBL game in April, Montonati scored 24 points while going 5-for-11 from 3-point range. He also grabbed five boards in that game and drew seven fouls.

He scored 29 points in MOKAN’s final game at Peach Jam in July, a game he went 4-for-7 from 3.

Along with success at the high school at AAU level, Montonati has won international gold with USA Basketball. He took part in the 2023 FIBA Americas U16 Championships. Playing on a stacked team, Montonati scored in double figures in three of the Americans’ six games and finished the tournament averaging 7.2 points and went 9-for-22 (41%) from 3-point range.

Montonati is the first piece to Lutz’s 2026 recruiting class, and what a piece he is. The one-man class of Montonati ranks 26th nationally and third in the Big 12 behind only Iowa State and Baylor.

“I’m just gonna be bringing a winner’s mindset from the day I step on campus,” Montonati said. “I’ve always grown up thinking Oklahoma State is a basketball school, and I’m ready to get Oklahoma State back into the NCAA Tournament every single year that I’m there and help Coach Lutz and the rest of the team rebuild it back up to one of the top programs in the Big 12 and nationally.”