Oklahoma State University Athletics
Cowboys Host Griffons in Exhibition Action
November 06, 2014 | Cowboy Basketball
Oklahoma State vs Missouri Western
Saturday, November 8, 2014 - 2 pm
Gallagher-Iba Arena - Stillwater, Okla.
Television - Cowboy Sports Network
Cox (OKC) - channel 68
Cox (Tulsa) - channel 68
Suddenlink (Stillwater) - 75
DirecTV - 679
Dish - check local listings
U-Verse - 751/648
Probable Starters
OSU Probable Starters Position Ht Wt Yr PPG RPG APG FG% 3FG% FT%
2 Le'Bryan Nash wing 6-7 235 Sr 13.9 5.5 1.6 .520 .000 .739
23 Leyton Hammonds wing 6-7 205 So 1.5 1.2 0.4 .315 .229 .333
20 Michael Cobbins post 6-8 230 Sr 4.5 4.3 0.4 .500 .000 .471
12 Anthony Hickey, Jr. guard 5-11 185 Sr 8.4 2.8 3.7 .368 .344 .575
13 Phil Forte, III guard 5-11 185 Jr 13.3 1.8 1.4 .427 .441 .869
OSU Off the Bench Position Ht Wt Yr PPG RPG APG FG% 3FG% FT%
1 Tyree Griffin guard 5-10 165 Fr no stats from last season
5 Tavarius Shine wing 6-5 195 Fr no stats from last season
14 Marek Soucek post 7-0 240 Sr 0.3 0.5 0.1 .250 .000 .333
15 Christien Sager wing 6-4 205 Sr 0.9 0.9 0.2 .400 .364 .529
22 Jeff Newberry guard 6-2 190 Jr no stats from last season
30 Jeffrey Carroll wing 6-6 205 RSFr no stats from last season
32 Anthony Allen, Jr. post 7-0 240 Jr no stats from last season
41 Mitchell Solomon post 6-9 235 Fr no stats from last season
MW Probable Starters Position Ht Wt Yr PPG RPG APG FG% 3FG% FT%
24 Kevin Thomas forward 6-8 240 Jr no stats from last season
33 Currie Byrd forward 6-7 210 Fr no stats from last season
1 Cortrez Colbert guard 6-2 180 Sr 13.4 4.1 2.8 .408 .270 .672
3 Ryan Devers guard 5-9 170 Sr 17.4 4.5 3.8 .441 .355 .879
21 Hans Thun guard 6-5 195 Sr 5.2 3.2 0.4 .463 .409 .684
Game Information
Oklahoma State unofficially opens the 105th season of Cowboy Basketball this Saturday as OSU hosts Missouri Western in an exhibition game at 2 pm on Nov. 8. Admission to the game is free, although season ticket holders will have priority over their reserved seats. The game will also be televised by the Cowboy Sports Network, broadcast on both Fox Sports Southwest Plus and Fox College Sports Central. Mike Wolfe will handle the play-by-play duties while former Cowboy Bryndon Manzer will provide expert analysis.
About Oklahoma State
Oklahoma State enters the 2014-15 season with just one returning starter, but four players with extensive experience at the Division I level. While Le'Bryan Nash is the only player returning from last season with at least 15 starts (he started all 34), Michael Cobbins has 55 starts in his career as a Cowboy and Phil Forte has 12. Anthony Hickey, a transfer from LSU, has started 85 games in his three-year career.
OSU was 21-13 a year ago and is coming off back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. The Cowboys averaged 80.2 points per game as a team last year, the fifth-highest in school history and third among all Big 12 teams last season. OSU led the Big 12 in scoring average, outscoring its opponents by an average of 10.7 ppg. The Cowboys were second in three-point defense, allowing just 32.7 percent shooting from long range. Oklahoma State led the league in both steals (7.65 spg) and turnover margin (+3.76). Expect the Cowboys to play up-tempo offense and aggressive defense in 2014-15.
About missouri western
Missouri Western was 10-18 last season as a member of the Mid-America Intercollegiate Athletics Association (NCAA Division II) and returns three starters. The Griffons were led by guard Ryan Devers, a senior on the squad in 2014-15. He averaged 17.4 points per game a year ago in starting all 28 games. Senior Cortrez Colbert also started all 28 contests last season, averaging 13.4 ppg. Hans Thun is the only other returning starter, picking up 18 last season while averaging 5.2 ppg and 3.2 rebounds per contest.
Missouri Western is coached by Brett Weiberg, who is in his second season as head coach of the Griffons. He took over the position in 2013 after a seven-year stint as the head coach at Northern Oklahoma College in Tonkawa. He is the son of former Cowboy assistant Mick Weiberg, and brother of former walk-on/manager Jared Weiberg, who was one of 10 men associated with the OSU program who perished in the plane crash in 2001.
The Roster
Oklahoma State has just five scholarship players returning from last season's team that won 20 games or more for the second-straight season. Seniors Michael Cobbins and Le'Bryan Nash will anchor the frontline, as both are three-year starters. Also back is sharp-shooting specialist Phil Forte, a junior who ranked second in the Big 12 Conference last season in both free-throw shooting and three-point shooting.
Also back is senior Marek Soucek, a bench player the last three seasons who has been hampered by injuries throughout his career. Sophomore Leyton Hammonds was a quick study last season, playing in 31 games as a rookie. Three walk-on guards -- seniors Christien Sager and Alex Budke, along with junior Ford Stuen -- all are returning lettermen.
Cowboy fans will see seven new faces in 2014-15, a mixture of redshirts, Division I transfers, junior-college transfers and freshmen. Jeffrey Carroll, who came in last season with Hammonds, redshirted his true freshman season and is looking to contribute this year. Anthony Hickey, a senior who transferred from LSU, spent the past three seasons as the starting point guard for the Tigers.
A pair of juco transfers -- Anthony Allen and Jeff Newberry -- could help OSU immediately. Allen is a 7-foot post who led the NJCAA ranks in blocked shots last season. Newberry was an honorable mention All-American at New Mexico JC.
Oklahoma State will also welcome the addition of four freshmen. Joe Burton is a 6-6 wing that was a highly ranked recruit out of the Houston area. Tyree Griffin was Mr. Basketball for the state of Louisiana and led his team to the Class 4A state title. Tavarius Shine spent the past year at Fork Union Military Academy after graduating from Irving MacArthur High School in the DFW metroplex. Mitchell Solomon was a member of The Oklahoman's Super 5 team as a post player at Bixby High School.
The mixture of experience and youth will make for an interesting start to the 2014-15 season. Coach Travis Ford and his staff have compiled a lot of talent that should gel by conference play.
The schedule
Oklahoma State will unofficially begin the season on Sat., Nov. 8, when the Cowboys host Missouri Western in an exhibition contest. The season officially starts on Fri., Nov. 14, when OSU hosts Southeastern Louisiana, the first of four games at home to open the season.
The Cowboys will host Milwaukee as part of the MGM Grand Main Event before traveling to Las Vegas, Nev., to play Oregon State and either Auburn or Tulsa the week of Thanksgiving.
It's back home for a matchup with North Texas the next week, followed by a trip to Columbia, S.C., for the SEC/Big 12 Challenge on Dec. 6. OSU comes home for a week of finals before setting out for Tennessee and a game vs Memphis in the FedEx Forum on Dec. 13.
A pair of games, including the first visit by a traditional ACC school in school history, will wrap up the home portion of the non-conference schedule. Middle Tennessee State will come to Gallagher-Iba Arena on Dec. 16, followed by Big Ten newcomer Maryland on Dec. 21. The Terrapins were members of the Atlantic Coast Conference for more than 60 years. It will mark the first time OSU has hosted a Big Ten school other than Nebraska since 1995 when Michigan State visited Stillwater.
The Cowboys will finish the non-league slate with a game vs former Big 12 school Missouri in Kansas City on Dec. 30. The game will be played at the Sprint Center, home of the Big 12 Championship.
For the third-consecutive season, the Big 12 Conference will play a true round-robin schedule, with every team playing every other team twice, once at home and once on the road. OSU's early conference matchups include home games against Kansas State, Texas, Texas Tech, Baylor and Oklahoma in January, with road games at Iowa State, Kansas, Oklahoma and Kansas State.
Down the stretch, the Cowboys will travel to Texas, Baylor, TCU, Texas Tech and West Virginia, while hosting Kansas, Iowa State, West Virginia and TCU in the month of February.
national TV coverage
As many as 23 of Oklahoma State's games this season will be televised nationally. The championship game of the MGM Grand Main Event will be aired on ESPN2. OSU's final five non-conference games will all be televised on the ESPN family of networks.
All 18 of the Cowboys' league games will be on one of ESPN's networks. OSU has seven games on ESPNU, four on ESPNews, three on ESPN2 and three on either ESPN or ESPN2. The last one is the game at Texas, which will be on the Longhorn Network.
record book watch
• Michael Cobbins ranks eighth in school history for career blocked shots with 111 entering his senior season. He needs three to move into seventh and 47 to move into sixth place.
• His 1.5 blocks-per-game average over a career ranks seventh in the school record books.
• Cobbins has 295 career defensive rebounds, ranking 19th, and his 121 offensive rebounds ranks 25th.
• He ranks 23rd in rebounds per game at 5.6 rpg.
• For Big 12 games only, Cobbins' 60 blocked shots ranks fourth in school history. He needs just 17 to move past Ivan McFarlin (76) and into second place behind Andre Williams (119).
• Le'Bryan Nash could become just the seventh player in school history to average double figures in all four seasons in a Cowboy uniform. He averaged 13.3 ppg as a freshman, 14.0 ppg as a sophomore and 13.9 ppg as a junior. The others are Ronnie Daniel (1973-77), Olus Holder (1974-78), Matt Clark (1978-83), Byron Houston (1988-92), Adrian Peterson (1995-99) and Ivan McFarlin (2001-05).
• Nash is the Big 12's active leader in 20-point games with 20, tying for the 16th most in OSU history.
• He ranks 21st in career points at OSU with 1,307 and 24th in career scoring average at 13.8 ppg.
• Nash's 55 consecutive starts streak (active) ranks as the 24th longest in school history.
• He has 736 career points in Big 12 Conference games, ranking sixth for a Cowboy.
• Nash needs just four field-goal attempts to become the 22nd player to attempt 1,000 shots.
• He is just the fourth player in school history to record 100 or more free throws in each of his first three seasons.
• Phil Forte holds the school record for three-point percentage in a game, connecting on all six attempts from long range at Oklahoma on Jan. 27, 2014.
• He tied Joe Smith for the longest streak of consecutive free-throws made in school history with 43.
• His overall FT percentage of 88.8 ranks second in school history behind John Lucas' school record 89.5 percent.
• Forte sits in eighth place in school history for three-pointers attempted in a career with 428, and ranks 10th in school history for three-pointers made in a career with 168 entering his junior season.
• He became the fifth player in school history with 100 three-pointers made in a season; the previous four were all seniors (Brooks Thompson in 1993-94, Randy Rutherford in 1994-95 and Keiton Page in 2011-12).
• Forte needs 212 points to reach the 1,000-point milestone.
newcomer notes
• Mitchell Solomon is the 20th player to join Oklahoma State's basketball team after being named to the Super 5 team by The Oklahoman since 1980. He has chosen to wear No. 41 on his jersey. He's the first Cowboy to don that number since Joe Atkinson in 1983.
• Tyree Griffin is the second Cowboy to be named Mr. Basketball in the state of Louisiana in the last five seasons. Markel Brown was Mr. Basketball in Louisiana in 2010.
• Anthony Hickey is a native of Hopkinsville, Ky., which is located just 35 miles due south of Madisonville, where coach Travis Ford went to high school.
• Anthony Allen, who hails from Kingston, Jamaica, is the 10th Cowboy in school history to have a hometown outside the United States. He is just the second to come from the Caribbean, as Robert Vigil, a member of the OSU basketball team in 1977-78, was from San Juan, Puerto Rico.
• Jeff Newberry, who is originally from Atlanta, Ga., was already familiar with the state of Oklahoma. Before playing last season at New Mexico Junior College, he spent one season at Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College in Miami, Okla.
• Tavarius (pronounced "tuh-VAR-us") Shine, who spent a prep year at Fork Union Military Academy, will turn 21 before he completes his freshman year at OSU.
random note-ables
• Oklahoma State has the highest winning percentage of all the current league schools against Kansas since the Big 12 formed in 1996. The Cowboys are 8-20 vs the Jayhawks during that span. Texas is second at 7-19.
• Phil Forte and Christien Sager are the first Cowboys to be named Academic All-District in the same season. They are the first student-athletes to receive that honor since 2002, and just the second and third since 1969.
• Leyton Hammonds' older brother Justin is a senior on the basketball team at Air Force this season.
• The four coaches on staff have coached a combined 46 players to the NBA in their careers.
OSU receiving votes
Oklahoma State received six votes in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll. There are eight Big 12 teams receiving votes, with Kansas leading the charge (fifth with 1,346 points). Texas is second (10th with 1,061), Iowa State is third (14th with 781) and Oklahoma rounds out the teams in the top 25 (19th with 426). Kansas State is receiving 27 points, while West Virginia and Baylor each received one point.
excelling in exhibitions
Oklahoma State has been very successful in exhibition contests over the years. The Cowboys are 53-4 (93.0 percent) in 57 exhibition games since 1973, including a 48-1 (98.0 percent) record since the 1989-90 season.
OSU has won 26 consecutive exhibition games, dating back to a loss to Athletes First on Nov. 9, 2000, which ended a 22-game win streak. The previous streak dated back Nov. 22, 1988, when the Cowboys lost 80-63 to an outstanding Soviet team -- led by Sharunas Marchulenis, Arvidas Sabonis and Alexandr Volkov.
The Cowboys have reached the century mark in points 19 times in exhibition contests.
