Underwood Leading Cowboys Into Showdown At K-State

Game Center
Opponent: Kansas State (17-10, 6-8 Big 12)
Date/Tipoff: Feb. 22, 2017 / 8 p.m. Central
Series: K-State leads 79-52 • In Manhattan: K-State leads 39-15
Tickets: kstatesports.com
TV: ESPNU (Clay Matvick & Tim Welsh)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Satellite Radio: Sirius 81, XM 81 (K-State call)
Internet Radio: http://okla.st/osutunein
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
OSU Game Notes

The Basics
• Late-game heroics from Jawun Evans gave the Cowboys a Bedlam sweep for the first time since 2004 and earned the sophomore a third Big 12 Player of the Week award. Evans scored 16 straight points for OSU over the final 6:36 to help the Cowboys overcome a 13-point second half deficit to beat arch-rival Oklahoma, 96-92. Now, Oklahoma State (18-9, 7-7 Big 12) heads to Kansas State (17-10, 6-8 Big 12) in Brad Underwood's first trip back to his alma-mater as a visiting head coach. Underwood's Cowboys have won four straight Big 12 road games, and eight of their last nine games overall.

On the Air
• Oklahoma State and K-State will face off on ESPNU with Clay Matvick and Tim Welsh on the call. This is the 12th of 13 scheduled appearance on ESPNU for the Cowboys this season. OSU is 8-3 on ESPNU this season, and 37-31 all-time on the network, which hosted its inaugural broadcast at Gallagher-Iba Arena on March 5, 2005. As always, Dave Hunziker and John Holcomb will have the Cowboy Radio Network call from Bramlage Coliseum.

Oklahoma State Snapshot
• COWBOY QUICK HITTERS: Jawun Evans joins Baylor's Jonathan Motley as the only players to win three Big 12 Player of the Week awards this season ... In the final eight minutes of the last two games, Jawun Evans scored a combined 26 points on 11-of-14 (.786) shooting ... According to KenPom, Oklahoma State has faced the nation's No. 2 strength of schedule ... The Cowboys have now won four straight Big 12 road games for the first time since the 2012-13 squad won five in a row ... In the Big 12, only Kansas (8) has more true road wins than the Cowboys (6) ... Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology report has the Cowboys as a No. 7 seed in the NCAA Tournament ... The last team to make the NCAA Tournament field after falling in their first six conference games was 1985-86 Maryland.
• Three-time Big 12 Player of the Week Jawun Evans is one of just four power conference players nationwide averaging at least 16 points and 6 assists in conference play. One of 30 players still in consideration for the Naismith Trophy, Evans ranks second in the Big 12 in scoring (18.2) and assists (5.8), and is fourth in steals (2.0). Evans has 10 20-point games and three 30-point games this season alone, and also earned a spot on the Maui Invitational All-Tournament team.
• The Cowboys have made a remarkable charge up the Big 12 standings. OSU fell to 0-6 in league play following a Jan. 16 loss to K-State, but are now in fifth place at 7-7 following Saturday's win over Oklahoma. With four Big 12 games left to play, OSU has already won four more league games than last season (3-15), which is tied for the fourth largest turnaround in conference play in school history. The 2012-13 Cowboys (13-5) hold the record for the largest turnaround at +6 wins over 2011-12 (7-11).
• Jeffrey Carroll is the nation's most improved power conference player, and in the conversation for the best wing player in the Big 12. The redshirt junior is only playing 3.4 more minutes per game this year, but boasts a scoring improvement of +9.5 points per game over his 2015-16 season. He is the only Big 12 player averaging at least 17 points (17.7, 3rd Big 12) and 6.6 rebounds (6.6, 9th Big 12), and he is the nation's only active power conference player averaging 17 points or more that can claim an improvement of +9.0 points from last season. Carroll joins Bryant "Big Country" Reeves as the only Oklahoma State players to ever make the same leap from one year to the next.
• Carroll entered the 2016-17 season with a career high scoring game of 18 points, but has tied or topped that mark 17 times this season, including in 11 of the last 14 games. He has 13 20-point scoring games this season, including eight in Big 12 play, and ranks second in scoring in league games at 18.8 per contest. Carroll is shooting an incredible 49.1 percent from 3-point in Big 12 play, which is second in the conference.
• A minor shift in defensive philosophy has been at the heart of OSU's recent resurgence. After five straight losses in close games (one or two possession games in the final five minutes) the Cowboys tweaked their defense and the results are staggering. Since the change, OSU has won eight of their last nine games, including four straight road games. In 360 minutes of clock time in this nine-game resurgence, OSU has only trailed for just 123:48.
• The Cowboy offense is on record-setting pace. KenPom ranks the Oklahoma State offense No. 2 in efficiency behind only UCLA. At 86.1 points per game, OSU is on pace to set a new school record for scoring average (current record: 83.5 in 1988-89), and in fact, is on pace to be the second-highest scoring squad in Big 12 history behind only the 2001-02 Kansas team that averaged 90.9 per game. The Cowboys have scored 95 points or more nine times this season, including a school-record tying five 100-point performances.
• Phil Forte III is the big man on campus lately. The redshirt senior became the program's all-time 3-point king in the win over Arkansas, and just two-days later hit the game-winning 3-pointer with 11 seconds remaining to beat Oklahoma in Norman for the first time since 2004. Forte is now up to 316 career 3-pointers, which ranks sixth in Big 12 Conference history and is third among all active players nationwide. Forte has been on fire since Big 12 play began, and is averaging 2.9 3-pointers per game on 48.2 percent shooting from deep, which ranks third in the league.
• With the win at Texas Tech, Brad Underwood picked up his 100th career victory in his 122nd game, which tied him for the 10th fastest coach to reach the century mark in college basketball history. At 107-23, Underwood owns an 82.3 career win percentage, which is tops among all active coaches, and his 89 wins at Stephen F. Austin tied him with Brad Stevens of Butler for the most victories by any coach after three seasons. Underwood is also tied for the ninth-best win percentage by a fourth-year head coach.
• OSU fields one of the youngest and most inexperienced lineups in the country. Even with fifth-year senior Phil Forte and his 129 career games, OSU still ranks 279th nationally in experience according to KenPom. The Cowboys entered the 2016-17 with just 15 combined years of collegiate experience, and currently have just 288 collegiate starts on the roster. OSU's average age of 20.2 years is tied with Texas for the youngest in the Big 12.
• The Cowboys have cleaned up on the offensive glass this year. OSU is ninth nationally with 13.85 offensive boards per game and sixth in offensive rebound percentage at 38.5 percent. A true team effort, only one player on the team ranks inside the top 100 in the country in offensive boards - Mitchell Solomon (89th, 2.78). The Cowboys have pulled down 15-plus offensive boards in 12 games this year.

K-State Connections & Snapshot
• First-year Oklahoma State head coach Brad Underwood is returning to his alma mater, Kansas State, for the first time as an opposing head coach. Underwood played on Jack Hartman's final teams from 1984-86, and appeared in 39 games with eight starts for the Wildcats. He graduated from K-State with a degree in Radio & TV Communications in 1986. In 2006-07, he returned to Manhattan as Bob Huggins' director of operations, and stayed on staff as an assistant coach under Frank Martin. He was named the associate head coach in his final season at K-State, 2011-12.
• Underwood is one of four Big 12 head coaches that has to face his alma mater at least twice a season. Oklahoma head coach Lon Kruger was a K-State point guard, while Bill Self played at Oklahoma State. New Texas Tech head coach Chris Beard is a 1995 graduate of Texas. Two other Big 12 coaches - WVU's Bob Huggins and TCU's Jamie Dixon - are at the helm of the programs they played for.
• The Wildcat defense ranks 11th nationally with a turnover percentage of 23.1 percent and 10th in steal percentage at 12.2 percent. Barry Brown leads the K-State defense with 2.4 steals per game, which trails only West Virginia's Jevon Carter among all Big 12 players.
• The Wildcats lead the overall series, 79-52, and have taken four of the last five meetings with the Cowboys. K-State has won the last five against OSU in Bramlage Coliseum, and leads the 39-15 all-time in Manhattan. OSU's last win in Manhattan was on Jan. 23, 2010, when an unranked Cowboys squad upset No. 10 K-State, 73-69.
• Bramlage Coliseum is one of just two Big 12 venues that OSU guard Phil Forte has not won in. The senior has yet to win at Iowa State, as well. Forte has tasted victory at Baylor, Kansas, Oklahoma, TCU, Texas, Texas Tech and West Virginia. With a win at K-State and Iowa State, Forte would join Naz Mitrou-Long as the only current Big 12 players to win in every league venue.

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Players Mentioned

Jeffrey Carroll

Jawun Evans

Mitchell Solomon

Oklahoma State University Athletics