Game Notes: Wofford

Wofford (6-5) at Oklahoma State (5-5)
Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2023 | 2:01 p.m. CT
Stillwater, Okla. | Gallagher-Iba Arena

Tickets: okstate.com/tickets
TV: ESPN+ (Mike Wolfe & Bryndon Manzer)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Internet Radio: okstate.com/listen & The Varsity Sports App
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Series: First meeting

The Basics:

The Oklahoma State Cowboys (5-5) host a holiday matinee against the Wofford Terriers (6-5) Wednesday at 2 p.m. CT inside historic Gallagher-Iba Arena.
The Cowboys shot 50% from the field and knocked down 14 threes in Sunday's 81-60 win over Oral Roberts. Quion Williams scored a career-high 13 points and Eric Dailey Jr. posted his second double-double with 12 points and 11 boards.
OSU has never faced Wofford but head coach Mike Boynton Jr. is familiar with the program. He served as Wofford's associate head coach during the 2007-08 season.

Watch:
The game will air on ESPN+ with Mike Wolfe and Bryndon Manzer. Subscribe to ESPN's over-the-top streaming service for $10.99/month ($110/year) or bundle with Disney+ and Hulu for as little as $14.99/month. Visit plus.espn.com for more information.

Listen:
Dave Hunziker and John Holcomb describe the action across the Cowboy Radio Network. Visit okstate.com/radio for a full list of network affiliates. Fans outside the listening area can tune in via the Varsity Sports App or at okstate.com/listen.

Last time on Cowboy Basketball:
Sunday, Dec. 17, 2023 (Stillwater) | OSU 81, Oral Roberts 60

OSU put away Oral Roberts early behind a dominant first half performance.
Quion Williams and Bryce Thompson scored 13 apiece and freshman Eric Dailey Jr. added a double-double for the Cowboys, who shot 50% .
Javon Small (8) and Brandon Garrison (6) combined for 14 of OSU's 24 assists on 31 baskets.
Four of Small's assists came during a 17-2 run over the final 6:00 of the first half.
The Cowboys led 48-27 at the intermission and by as many as 30 down the stretch.
Eight different OSU players made at least one three-pointer in a 14-of-30 (.467) performance. Thompson was 4-of-9.
Issac McBride finished with 14 points for ORU, which shot 39.3% from the field and committed a season-high 13 turnovers. The Golden Eagles had entered the day with the fourth-fewest turnovers nationally (8.7) and the 10th-most threes (10.8).

Doing it with Defense:

Sunday's win marked the 100th time under seventh-year head coach Mike Boynton Jr. that the Cowboys have held their opponent under 40% from the field -- eighth most nationally in that span.
OSU is 78-22 in those games and a perfect 4-0 this year.

Since 2017-18 // Most Opponents Under 40% FG:
1. Houston -- 142
2. UC-Irvine -- 115
3. Tennessee -- 113
4. San Diego St. -- 110
5. Virginia -- 108
6. Michigan St. -- 103
7. Texas Tech -- 102
8. Oklahoma St. – 100
9. Norfolk St. -- 98
10. Kansas -- 97

Feeling Right at Home:

OSU is 39-12 in Boynton Era non-conference home games (4-2 this season).
OSU is shooting just under 40% from three at home this year (10.8 per game on 39.6% accuracy) led by Bryce Thompson (10/19, .526), Javon Small (11/26, .423) and Jarius Hicklen (11/29, .379).
Small has posted a better than 7-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio in his first five games at GIA (31 assists, five turnovers).

More ORU Leftovers:

OSU held the Golden Eagles to 39.3% shooting but failed to record a block for the first time since a Jan. 2, 2021 overtime win at No. 13 Texas Tech.
The Cowboys streak of 96 consecutive games with at least one block spanned nearly three full calendar years and was their second-longest on record (data is available for only the last 50 seasons). They did it in 117 straight games from January 2011 to March 2014.
Rim protection has been a point of pride under seventh-year head coach Mike Boynton Jr. whose teams led the Big 12 in blocks per game in each of the past three previous seasons.
The Cowboys have blocked a total of 498 shots since the start of the 2020-21 season, which puts them among the top-15 nationally.
OSU's .774 assist percentage against ORU (24 assists on 31 field goals) was their highest since a Jan. 25, 2020 win at Texas A&M when they recorded helpers on 22 of 27 baskets (.815).
OSU is 5-0 this year when leading at the half but 0-5 when tied or trailing.
Going back to last year, OSU has held 19 straight opponents under 80 points.
Over the last two seasons, OSU is 24-4 when finishing with a higher shooting percentage than the opposition, compared to 1-17 when out-shot.
The Cowboys' five wins have all come by 15+ points. In those games they're averaging 85.2 points, have made more than half of their shots (.505), knocked down an average of 12.2 threes (.421) and out-rebounded their opponents by double-digits (+10.2). Defensively, they've held foes to 64.0 points on 38.6% shooting, 5.2 threes (.295) and roughly half as many assists (34) as turnovers (69).
In their five losses, the Cowboys have shot just 40.0% and made half as many threes (6.2) on 27.9% accuracy. Opponents have hit 45.7%, including 37.5% of their threes, and have the same number of assists (62) as turnovers (62).

All-a-Board:

OSU has out-rebounded its last three opponents by an average of 15.3 per game.
The Cowboys have been especially good on the defensive glass, vacuuming up 83 of the 102 opponent misses (81.4%) while limiting the three teams to a total of 15 second chance points.
The Cowboys rank 15th nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, snapping up over three-quarters of available opportunities (76.9%).
OSU has taken a committee approach to rebounding. Four different Cowboys have posted a double-double this year (Quion Williams, Eric Dailey Jr., Javon Small and Mike Marsh) and five players have grabbed double-digit rebounds at least once (Brandon Garrison).

It's a Small World:

Point guard Javon Small is one of five Division I players who averaging 16+ points, 5+ rebounds and 5+ assists per game.
In eight games, Small has scored 144 points and helped produce 111 more off assists. Those 255 total points represent nearly half (47.4%) of OSU's scoring output during his time on the court.

The Series with Wofford:

OSU has never faced Wofford.
The Terriers are one of four first-time foes on the Cowboys' 2023-24 schedule. OSU faced St. Bonaventure and Notre Dame at the Legends Classic in Brooklyn and will meet up with South Carolina State on the other side of the Christmas break.
The Cowboys are 7-0 all-time against the SoCon's 10 current member schools (4-0 vs. Samford, 2-0 vs. Mercer, 1-0 vs. ETSU).

On this Date....

20 years ago -- Dec. 20, 2003 -- Eddie Sutton and the Cowboys trampled Arkansas 73-58 in Fayetteville behind 22 points from Tony Allen. The 2003-04 Cowboys finished 31-4, swept the Big 12's regular season and tournament titles, and advanced to the Final Four.
30 years ago -- Dec. 20, 1993 -- double-doubles from Randy Rutherford (19 pts, 10 reb) and Bryant Reeves (16 pts, 12 reb) lifted the Cowboys to a 73-61 road win over Tubby Smith's Tulsa Golden Hurricane.
75 years ago on this floor -- Dec. 20, 1948 -- eventual national runner-up Oklahoma A&M defeated the previous year's runner-up, Baylor, 56-40. Joe Bradley, who would later go on to play for the NBA's Chicago Stags, scored a team-high 15 points.

Scouting the Terriers:

Wofford is a little over four years removed from its 2019 NCAA tournament upset of Seton Hall. That team's lynchpin was a senior guard named Fletcher Magee who hit a then-NCAA record 509 threes on 43.5% accuracy over his four-year career (2015-19).
Dwight Perry is in his first full season as head coach after serving as the interim for the last three and a half months of the 2022-23 season. He led the Terriers to a 17-16 record and the semifinals of the SoCon tournament.
Wofford is picked eighth out of 10 teams in this year's SoCon preseason poll after losing three of its starters to the transfer portal.
The Terriers (6-5) ride a four-game winning streak. Three of those victories have been on the road.
Three returners started at least half the games last season, led by Corey Tripp a junior point guard who averages 14.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and a team-best 3.8 assists while ranking among the top-20 nationally in assist-to-turnover ratio (3.50).
6-9 senior Kyler Filewich (10.0 ppg) is the team's leading rebounder at 8.1 per game and is shooting 64% from the field.
6-3 junior Dillon Bailey – a transfer from Division II Northeastern State – has been Wofford's top scorer at 15.1 points. He's averaging 2.4 threes per game on 36.6% accuracy and also been a magnet for fouls with 64 free throw attempts already this year.
Wofford has gotten a lift off the bench from sophomore sniper Chase Cormier, a Northeastern transfer who has connected on 20 of his 37 three-point tries (.541) and all 14 of his free throw attempts.
Offensively, Wofford is averaging 81.5 points on 47.4% shooting while posting strong assist numbers (58.8% assist rate, 17.0 apg, 1.35 A:TO ratio).
Like recent OSU opponents Creighton, SIU and ORU, the Terriers lean heavily on the three-ball, attempting nearly half of their shots from distance (46.9%) while converting at a .352 clip. They enter the week ranked 30th nationally in three-point makes (9.8) and 25th in attempts (27.9).
The Terriers have hit at least 11 threes in each of their last three games, including a season-high 17 on 44 attempts (.386) in their Dec. 9 win at Coastal Carolina.
KenPom rates Wofford 129th out of 362 teams in offensive efficiency and 291st defensively. Opponents average 77.8 points
Wofford plays fast (61st out of 362 teams in tempo) but doesn't force many turnovers (3.8 steals). In fact, just four teams average fewer (Creighton, 3.1; Holy Cross, 3.6; West Virginia, 3.7; Charleston Southern, 3.8).
The Terriers have been good on the glass – particularly on the defensive end -- and are outrebounding opponents by an average of 6.0 per game.

Matchup Mashup:

Mike Boynton Jr. spent a year on staff at Wofford (2007-08) as associate head coach under Mike Young (now the head coach at Virginia Tech)
First year Wofford assistant Drew Gibson was a senior on that 2007-08 Wofford team and a first team All-SoCon performer.
Exactly one year ago (Dec. 20, 2022) Wofford stunned Texas A&M on its home floor, 67-62. It was the lone home loss of the season for the Aggies who went on to earn a No. 7 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Wofford sophomore Chase Martin played his high school basketball at Jenks High School, just south of Tulsa.

A Cowboy win would...

Move them over the .500 mark for the first time this year at 6-5.
Give them victories in five of their last seven.
Up their home record to 5-2.
Make them 1-0 all-time vs. Wofford.
Boost their non-conference record under Boynton to 61-29 (40-12 at GIA).

Up Next: South Carolina State
Sunday, Dec. 31 | 2 p.m. CT | ESPN+

The Cowboys end an 11-day layoff on New Year Eve when they play host to South Carolina State a Gallagher-Iba Arena.
The teams have never met on the hardwood.
SCSU (3-10) rank eighth nationally in offensive rebounds per game (15.9).
The visit to Stillwater is the last of 11 non-conference road games on SCSU's schedule before diving into MEAC play.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Eric Dailey Jr.

Brandon Garrison

Jarius Hicklen

Mike Marsh

Javon Small

Bryce Thompson

Quion Williams

Oklahoma State University Athletics