Game Notes: at Southern Illinois

Oklahoma State (3-4) at Southern Illinois (5-2)
Tuesday, Dec. 5, 2023 | 8:05 p.m. CT
Carbondale, Ill. | Banterra Center

TV: CBS Sports Network (Dave Ryan & Tre Demps)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Internet Radio: okstate.com/listen & The Varsity Sports App
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Series: SIU leads 5-2 (2-0 in Carbondale)
Streak: SIU, Won 2 | Last: Nov. 10, 2022 in Stillwater (SIU, 61-60)

OSU Game Notes (Full PDF)

The Basics:
The Oklahoma State Cowboys (3-4) play their first true road game of the season Tuesday night at Southern Illinois. OSU will be looking to avenge last year's 61-60 loss to SIU in Stillwater and win for the first time in three trips to Carbondale. Since the start of the 2019-20 season the Cowboys are 9-2 in non-conference road games.

Watch:
The game will air on CBS Sports Network with Dave Ryan and Tre Demps. Fans with CBSSN in their television package can stream the game live and on-demand at live.cbssports.com or through the CBS Sports app.

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.

The Mike Boynton Show:
Hear the latest insights from head coach Mike Boynton by tuning in to his weekly radio show on the Cowboy Radio Network. The program airs Monday nights (6-7 p.m.) in December and on Thursdays in January/February from the Rib Crib in Stillwater. Note -- Due to team travel, the Dec. 4 episode will be pre-taped.

Last Time on Cowboy Basketball:
Nov. 30, 2023 (Stillwater) | No. 15/14 Creighton 79, OSU 65

OSU hung with No. 15 Creighton for the majority of the night, save for one disastrous six-minute stretch late in the first half. The Bluejays scored 17 unanswered to build an 18-point halftime lead and held on from there.
Javon Small scored a game-high 24 points and freshman Eric Dailey Jr. posted his first career double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds for the Cowboys, who trailed 28-27 after Bryce Thompson's basket but missed their last nine field goal attempts of the half.
Ryan Kalkbrenner (16 pts, 12 reb) scored seven points during Creighton's pivotal run. Baylor Scheierman (21 pts) and Trey Alexander (20) also had big nights for the Bluejays, one of the nation's most-prolific three-point shooting teams. They made 7-of-12 threes in the first half and 10-of-19 overall to finish at 52.7% from the field.
OSU made 7-of-16 threes but just 18-of-46 from inside the arc in a 40% shooting effort.
The Cowboys won the second half, 36-32. They pulled to within a dozen points on five different occasions but could get no closer.

More Creighton Leftovers:

Eric Dailey Jr. (13 points, career-high 11 rebounds) became the third different Cowboy to log a double-double this year and the fourth to register double-digit rebounds in a game.
A 34-30 second half score against Creighon marked the sixth time in seven games that the Cowboys have won the second half. They've outscored opponents by an average of 8.3 points after halftime.
By contrast, OSU has been outscored by an average of 1.3 points in the first half of games. The Cowboys are 3-0 when leading at halftime but 0-4 when trailing.
Creighton's 79-point night ended a streak of 15-straight games in which the Cowboys had held the opposition to 70-or-less.
The Cowboys had at least two true freshmen on the court for 22 of the game's 40 minutes.
OSU is now 1-16 over the last two seasons when being outshot by its opponent, compared to 22-4 when gaining the upperhand.

Small Looms Large:

Oklahoma State junior Javon Small enters the week as one of only nine Division I players who are averaging better than 15.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game.
No Cowboy has ever exceeded all three thresholds over a full season. Marcus Smart came the closest in 2013-14 when he averaged 18.0, 5.9 and 4.8 and John Starks gets honorable mention for his 1987-88 totals of 15.4/4.7/4.6.
In the six total games that Small has been active, OSU has a 1.52 assist-to-turnover ratio.
With big nights against Notre Dame (29 points) and Creighton (24), Small became just the second Cowboy newcomer in the last 15 seasons to finish November with multiple 20-point performances, joining Cade Cunningham who did it twice as a freshman in 2020-21.

Minutes to Win It:

Thurdsay's starting-five of Javon Small, Bryce Thompson, Quion Williams, Eric Dailey Jr. and Brandon Garrison (OSU's fifth different starting lineup combo this season) played a total of six minutes and 29 seconds together. They were the team's most-productive offensive grouping, outscoring the Creighton 16-9 while averaging 1.47 points per possession.
Prior to Thursday night, those five players had shared the floor for a grand total of 19 seconds.
Injuries have limited the Cowboys' continuity in games and practices. Less than than a month into the regular season, five of the 12 scholarship players have missed at least one game to injury.
Point guards Small and Jamyron Keller were both in street clothes during the season-opening loss to Abilene Christian (Nov. 6). Small made his debut the following game against Sam Houston (Nov. 12) but Keller was absent for each of the first four contests.
Thompson, last year's leading scorer, suffered an injury in the first half of the Legends Classic opener against St. Bonaventure (Nov. 16) and missed three subsequent games.
Mike Marsh, who started the first three games at center, joined Thompson, Keller and redshirt freshman Isaiah Miranda on the bench for the Nov. 17 overtime loss to Notre Dame. That forced Garrison into a career-high 36 minutes as the roster's only remaining center.
Miranda was set to make his Cowboy debut on Nov. 20 against New Orleans but injured himself again during the team's afternoon shoot around.
Thompson rejoined the lineup for the Creighton game on Nov. 30 but spent the majority of the night in foul trouble after being whistled three times in the first half.

Keeping up with the Trends:

Freshman Eric Dailey Jr. has scored in double-figures in each of his last three games. Over that span he's averaged 13.0 points and 8.7 rebounds while shooting 63.6% from the field.
Javon Small and John-Michael Wright have so far been immune to the free throw bug that's bitten the majority of the Cowboys. OSU ranks among the bottom-30 nationally in team percentage (.609). Small is 19-of-21 (.905) and Wright 13-of-14 (.929), but the rest of the roster has combined to make just 46-of-91 (.505).
OSU two-headed monster of 6-10 super senior Mike Marsh and 6-11 freshman Brandon Garrison have split the minutes fairly evenly and average a combined 15.5 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per 40 minutes on 56% shooting.
Marsh has been the more productive scorer at 9.7 points on 60% shooting. Garrison excels as a rim protector with a team-high 13 blocks. He ranks 18th nationally in block percentage (11.6), per KenPom.

The Series with SIU:

OSU is just 2-5 all-time against Southern Illinois and is winless in two previous trips Carbondale. The last of those took place in the first round of the 2008 NIT at what was then SIU Arena. The building was renovated in 2011 and renamed the Banterra Center in 2019.
Tuesday night's game completes a home-and-home series that began last November at OSU's Gallagher-Iba Arena. SIU's Marcus Domask sank a go-ahead three-pointer with 22 seconds remaining and the Salukis held on for a 61-60 road victory.
Like so many others in OSU history, this series began through a Henry Iba connection.
Jack Hartman – a member of OSU's national championship teams in 1945 and 1946 and later an Iba assistant – was head coach at Southern Illinois from 1962-70. He led the Salukis to four NCAA Division II tournaments, including a pair of runner-up finishes, and guided them to the 1967 NIT title while transitioning the program to Division I status.
Hartman faced his former mentor, Iba, three times from 1963-66 and came away with two victories. The first of those wins came in the 1964-65 season opener in Carbondale against an OSU team that would go on to win the Big 8 title and advance to the Midwest Regional Final.
The biggest of the seven series meetings came in the second round of the 2005 NCAA tournament in Oklahoma City. Ivan McFarlin scored 31 points to send the Cowboys into the Sweet 16 with an 85-77 victory.
The teams met again in the 2008 postseason in the first round of the NIT. Junior point guard Bryan Mullins (now SIU's head coach) was sidelined due to injury, but the Salukis still managed a 69-53 home win.

Scouting the Salukis:

SIU returns three starters from a 23-win team that tied for third place in the Missouri Valley Conference race, but fifth-year head coach Bryan Mullins must replace a pair of all-conference performers who combined to average more than 30 points.
The Salukis (picked ninth out of 12 teams in the MVC's preseason poll) improved to 5-2 on Saturday with a 101-62 home win over Saint Louis. Their only losses have come against James Madison (ranked No. 22 at the time) and Indiana State.
SIU follows a similar blueprint to OSU's most recent foe, Creighton, maximizing three-point attempts while forcing opponents into tough twos.
As of Sunday, the Salukis rank among the national leaders in three-point field goal percentage (13th, .404) and three-point field goal percentage defense (16th, .263).
Per KenPom, in games against Division I opponents, SIU has the sixth-lowest percentage of points scored off of two-point field goals (39.7%) and surrenders the fourth-lowest percentage of points off of threes (17.4%).
Yesterday's role players have become today's stars, most notably Xavier Johnson, who ranks fourth nationally in scoring (as of Sunday) at 23.1 points – more than triple his output from last season when he put up 7.0 per-game. The 6-1 graduate guard is also averaging 5.0 assists and 1.8 steals while shooting 45% from three (18-of-40) and 92.6% at the line (50-of-54). Per KenPom, he ranks among the nation's top-10 in fouls drawn-per-40 (7.8) and among the top-30 in assist rate (36.6).
Five other Salukis average between eight and 10 points.
Like Johnson, fifth-year seniors Troy D'Amico (9.6 ppg, 11/30 3pt) and Trent Brown (8.3 ppg, 18/34 3pt) have stepped into larger roles, both averaging north of 30 minutes-per-game.
Ditto for 6-8 junior forward Clarence Rupert, who averages 9.4 points and is the team's leading rebounder (7.3) and shot-blocker (8), and 6-6 junior guard A.J. Ferguson (8.2 ppg) who has started five games after clocking just 59 total minutes last year.

Matchup Mashup:

Former SIU head coach Barry Hinson is in his second year as the OSU athletic department's chief NIL administrator after a three-year run as an analyst on the Cowboy Basketball staff.
SIU is 4-0 at home this year with five straight wins going back to the end of last season.
The Salukis have won 22 consecutive non-conference home games, last losing to San Francisco on Nov. 16, 2019.
OSU is the first Power 5 school to appear at SIU's home arena since… Oklahoma State in the 2008 NIT and the first P5 to play a regular season date in Carbondale since Dec. 1, 2007 when Kelvin Sampson brought 15th-ranked Indiana to town.
Mike Boynton Jr. has scheduled at least one non-P5 road game in every season since 2018-19. Recent Cowboy road trips include Oakland (2022), Oral Roberts (2021), Wichita State (2020), UT Arlington (2020), Houston (2019), College of Charleston (2019), Tulsa (2018) and Charlotte (2018).

A Cowboy win would...

Move them back to the .500-mark (4-4).
Be their first ever in Carbondale (1-2) and narrow SIU's all-time series lead to 5-3.
Make them 1-0 this year in true road games.
Give them three consecutive road victories going back to last March when they defeated Texas Tech on the final day of the regular season and Youngstown State in the first round of the NIT.
Match their longest true road winning streak (3) since January of 2021 when they defeated No. 13 Texas Tech, Kansas State and Iowa State over a 24-day period.
Make them 10-5 in non-conference road games under Boynton with victories in 10 of their last 12.

Up Next: vs. Tulsa (Paycom Center/OKC)
Sunday, Dec. 10 | 5:30 p.m. CT | ESPN2

OSU and Tulsa take the long-standing rivalry on the road this weekend with a neutral court game at Oklahoma City's Paycom Center.
Tickets for The Battleground 2k23 are on sale now at ticketmaster.com or through the Paycom Center Box Office.
The 115th series meeting between OSU and Tulsa will be their first in OKC since the 1994 NCAA tournament. The Cowboys last played on the OKC Thunder's home court in 2013.
OSU improved to 75-39 all-time against Tulsa with last year's 82-56 triumph at Gallagher-Iba Arena. Bryce Thompson led the way with 18 points on four three-pointers. The Cowboys used a 12-0 first-half run to build a 41-29 halftime lead and outscored the visitors 35-8 over the first 11 minutes of the second half.

And Then: Oral Roberts
Sunday, Dec. 17 | 4 p.m. CT | ESPN+

OSU opens up a five-game homestand against another in-state foe, ORU.
Fans can purchase seats at okstate.com/tickets.
The teams last met Nov. 26, 2021 at ORU's Mabee Center. The Cowboys survived 29 points from the nation's leading scorer, Max Abmas, to win 78-77 in overtime.
OSU is 12-1 all-time against ORU at Gallagher-Iba Arena with 11 consecutive wins. The lone loss came on Dec. 13, 1977.
Over the next three weeks, the Cowboys will also welcome Wofford (Dec. 20), South Carolina State (Dec. 31) and Chicago State (Jan. 3) to Stillwater before tipping off the Big 12 slate against Baylor (Jan. 6).

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Players Mentioned

Eric Dailey Jr.

Brandon Garrison

Jamyron Keller

Mike Marsh

Isaiah Miranda

Javon Small

Bryce Thompson

Quion Williams

John-Michael Wright

Oklahoma State University Athletics