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Setting Up Our Expectations for the 2016-17 Oklahoma State Basketball Team

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It’s game week!

The Cowboys fire up Gallagher-Iba Arena Friday night for the first game that counts in the Brad Underwood era. The first-year head coach will field a group of Cowboys that includes several new faces along with some mainstays and couple of dynamic leaders who are finally healthy.

So what can we expect from the 2016-17 Cowboys? I wrote about how hard it is to win early at OSU historically earlier this week.

Let’s look at the best case/worst case scenarios for Underwood’s inaugural campaign.

The Ceiling. Oh my.

If you are like me, you watched that preseason dismantling of a supposedly feisty albeit Division-II opponent in Pittsburg State and got a little ove zealous. It’s not just the fact that they blew out Pitt State. They were supposed to do that. It’s in what fashion they dispatched the “Fightin’ Harambes.”

The Cowboys showed energy and intensity on defense the entire game, from the tip until late in the second half when there was no hope of a Gorilla comeback. They also looked more fundamentally sound offensively than I’ve seen an orange-clad Oklahoma school look in recent memory.

The ball was moving. The players were moving. What’s that? A back-door cut? An easy bucket?

Oh, be still.

Not only do the Cowboys have their two star back-court weapons back in Jawun Evans and Phil Forte, they add some very intriguing young players with the likes of Lindy Waters, Brandon Averette, Cam McGriff and Thomas Dziagwa. Don’t be surprised if all four of them see minutes this year.

With Evans making his bid for a first-round selection in the 2017 NBA draft and Forte within range of a couple of Keiton Paige’s career landmarks, expect the offense to put up numbers. And let’s not forget the young talent like Waters being put in a position to succeed by a proven winner at coach.

I could talk myself into dangerous territory optimistically, but with a more level head I’d say this team’s ceiling is a top three or four finish in the conference and a decent seed in the tournament. Let’s say 21-12 (10-8) with a game to go to the Sweet 16.

The Floor

Conversely, you look at all the young players that figure to see playing time and you recognized the increased opportunity for lapses in execution, blown assignments on defense and moments in the season being too big for certain players.

There most definitely will be growing pains for a lot of these young guys. But there may also be some for Brad Underwood as he adjusts to a step up in competition and works to establish his culture with a mix of hold-over players and his own recruits.

We know the Evans-Forte back court should be explosive with the ball but what about on defense? The duo sports an average size of 6-foot even and 190 pounds. Those aren’t exactly daunting physical attributes when you’re trying to guard the KUs or even Iowa States of the world.

A fairly young team trying to learn a brand new system is going to hit their stumbling blocks along the way. Let’s be fair with our expectations and listen to the coaches for once. The floor for this team is probably right where the coaches picked in the preseason, seventh in the conference.

Let’s say 19-13 overall with a conference record of 8-10 or 9-9, which probably makes the Cowboys a bubble team come March. This is all barring injuries of course.

I think that’s a pretty good place to be if you’re OSU. At worst, you’re a promising young team who will steal a couple they probably shouldn’t. At best, you’re an instant threat to contend at the top of the league and a hard out in the spring.

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