Oklahoma State Might Not Be Efficient On Offense, But It Will Score … a LOT

In their best effort of the young season, the Cowboys rolled over the University of New Orleans Privateers on Wednesday evening, 117-72. Six Cowboys reached double figures, and the starters rested nearly all of the second half, after torching UNO for 68 in the first half. Under Travis Ford, the Cowboys hadn’t topped 100 points since 2013? It’s true. On November 13 of 2013, OSU beat No. 11 Memphis 101-80, and it hadn’t topped 100 points since.

• Brad Underwood: three 100-point games in 3 games
• Travis Ford: nine 100-point games in 176 games

On Wednesday the ball movement was crisp, the guards attacked the lane, and the Cowboys shot 44 percent from three, knocking down open shot after open shot. Brad Underwood’s squad is averaging a ridiculous 107 points per game in the 2016-2017 season, good for No. 3 in the NCAA, behind only The Citadel and UCLA currently.

That doesn’t necessarily mean this is one of the best “offensive” scoring teams in the country quite yet. While their 52.2% field goal percentage from the floor is solid, it ranks just No. 39 in the NCAA. Per KenPom’s adjusted offense, the Cowboys look even worse- they rank No. 61 in the NCAA at 107.5 points scored per 100 possessions (adjusted for opponent).

So why are they scoring so much? This is a volume shooting team. The term “volume shooter” usually has a negative connotation. It implies a player needs to shoot a lot of shots to get their points. However, Brad Underwood wants this team to take a lot of shots. This will come naturally as a result of forcing turnovers on defense, getting out in transition quickly, crashing the offensive glass, stealing more possessions and giving this team more shots.

They project to be a good-not-great shooting team, and an undersized team at that. But creating chaos on the defensive end and hitting the glass hard will make up for these deficiencies- last night’s win was a perfect example.

Here’s what hustle looks like. Cowboys owned the hustle stats on Wednesday night, which helped them take down New Orleans 117-72. #okstate pic.twitter.com/MIQKKwCuic

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) November 17, 2016

Brad Underwood’s Stephen F. Austin teams set the precedent for this Cowboys offensive approach, and because of the volume shooting mentality, it’s no surprise they’ve traditionally outperformed their adjusted offense numbers by their points per game. This is what “defense creating offense” looks like.

The whole key for this team is creating that volume we discussed above. Turnovers created, points off turnovers, offensive rebounds, and second-chance points are the most important statistics for this Cowboy basketball team.

“We worked a lot of defense,” said Phil Forte on Wednesday of the last few days. “A lot of transition defense. We had a lot of things to correct, and so we took that time to work on the necessary things and come out here tonight to fix that.”

This is what creates a high volume of shots. Ideally you want 5, 10 or even 20 more looks thank your opponent (they took 11 more on Wednesday night than UNO). This is also what will largely determine if OSU can continue to put up impressive offensive numbers against much better competition starting Monday night against UConn in Maui.