Game Notes: West Virginia

West Virginia (7-12, 2-4) at Oklahoma State (8-11, 0-6)
Saturday, Jan. 27, 2024 | 1:01 p.m. CT
Stillwater, Okla. (Gallagher-Iba Arena)

Tickets: okstate.com/tickets
TV: Big 12 Now on ESPN+ (James Westling & 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: Tied, 12-12 (WVU leads 6-5 in Stillwater)
Last: Feb. 20, 2023 in Morgantown, W.Va. (WVU, 85-67)

The Basics:

Jan. 27 marks the 23rd anniversary of the plane crash that claimed the lives of 10 members of the Cowboy Basketball family: Kendall Durfey, Bjorn Fahlstrom, Nate Fleming, Will Hancock, Daniel Lawson, Brian Luinstra, Denver Mills, Pat Noyes, Bill Teegins and Jared Weiberg.
Saturday afternoon, Oklahoma State will continue its promise to forever Remember the Ten when the Cowboys take on the West Virginia Mountaineers inside Gallagher-Iba Arena. Tipoff is 1 p.m. CT.
OSU is coming off a 74-69 setback against TCU on Tuesday night. John-Michael Wright scored a season-high 16 points for the Cowboys who led by as many as 17 late in the first half.
WVU is in search of its first road win (0-4) after Tuesday's 72-59 defeat at UCF.
This is the only regular season meeting the schools in 2023-24. They've split 24 previous matchups.

Watch:
The game will air on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ with James Westling 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 on stations across the Cowboy Radio Network. Visit okstate.com/radio for a full list of affiliates by location. Fans outside the listening area can tune in via the Varsity Sports App or at okstate.com/listen.

Mike Boynton Show:
Hear the latest insights from head coach Mike Boynton Jr. by tuning in to his weekly radio show on the Cowboy Radio Network. The program airs Thursday nights (6-7 p.m.) from the Rib Crib in Stillwater.

Last Time on Cowboy Basketball:
Tuesday, Jan. 23 (Stillwater) | TCU 74, OSU 69

OSU grabbed a 17-point first half lead but couldn't hang onto it.
John-Michael Wright led a group of four double-figure scorers with 16 points and Javon Small added 15 points and seven assists.
Four of Small's dimes came during an early 18-2 run that helped the Cowboys to a 33-16 start, but TCU spanned halftime with its own 23-4 run and took the lead for good with another 12-2 push late in the second half.
OSU pulled to within 72-69 after Jarius Hicklen's free throws with 1:00 left and had the ball with a chance to tie when TCU's Micah Peavy missed the front end of a 1-and-1 with 31 seconds left. Instead, Small was whistled for a charge and the Frogs made two free throws for the final margin.
Emanuel Miller had 21 points and 11 rebounds for TCU, which made just 3-of-15 threes but converted 27-of-42 from inside the arc (.643) to finish at 52.6%.
The Cowboys shot 41.2% and hit 10-of-27 from deep (.370). They committed only five turnovers and held the national leader in fast break points (22.2) to less than half of its average (10).

Team Trends:

OSU is 0-6 in Big 12 play for the first time since the 2019-20 season. That Cowboy team dropped its first eight league games but regrouped to win seven of the last 10 and was in contention for an NCAA tournament bid prior to the COVID-19 shutdown.
Per KenPom, OSU opponents have scored less than a quarter of their points from beyond the arc (25th-fewest nationally). 58.2% come from two-point field goals (12th-most).
By contrast, the Cowboys have taken 44.7% of their shots (32nd) and done 38.0% of their overall damage from deep (25th).
OSU's 9.1 threes-per-game is second on the Big 12 leaderboard behind BYU (12.4).
The Cowboys ranks fourth in the Big 12 and No. 34 nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, snapping up 74.8% of opponent misses.
The Cowboys are 0-9 this season when trailing at halftime and have lost 10 straight overall. Their last comeback win came at Youngstown State in the first round of the 2023 NIT when they rallied from nine down at halftime to win.
OSU is 7-2 this season (and 26-5 over the last two) when out-shooting its opponent compared to 1-9 when out-shot.

Individual Notes:

Bryce Thompson needs just 78 more points to become the 44th member of OSU's 1,000-point club. He recently moved into the top-20 on OSU's career three-point list (120) and needs just six more to catch Melvin Sanders (126 from 2000-03) for 19th.
Eric Dailey Jr. has come off the bench the last two games following a run of 16 straight starts. The results have been positive. Dailey averaged 14.0 points in 25.9 minutes against Kansas State and TCU (up from the 9.7 and 25.0 he had been averaging prior to the move). He made 12 of 20 shots from the field (.600).
Dailey is shooting 58.7% in Big 12 play, including 70.3% (26/37) from inside the arc.
Jarius Hicklen has connected on a three-pointer in 15 consecutive games (Nov. 20-Present) and in 18 of 19 this season.
Hicklen's .434 three-point percentage would place among the top-10 on OSU's single-season list (minumum 30 makes). He's hit on 12-of-25 since the start of conference play (.480).
Hicklen has committed just one turnover and been whistled for only two fouls in six Big 12 contests, spanning 119 minutes.
John-Michael Wright scored a season-high 16 points against TCU and became the eighth different Cowboy to take a turn as leading scorer.
A 10-for-27 performance against TCU marked the seventh time that OSU has made double-digit threes this year -- one more than all of last season.
The Cowboys have shot especially well on the home rims. In 12 games at GIA, they're averaging 10.1 threes on 38.2% accuracy. The trio of Thompson (25/60, .417), Small (24/59, .407) and Hicklen (24/56, .429) are all averaging at least two triples on better-than 40% efficiency.
Javon Small ranks among the Big 12 leaders in free throw percentage (5th, .846), three-point field goals (7th, 2.17), assists (7th, 4.7), defensive rebounds (8th, 4.7) and minutes (9th, 32:22)
Brandon Garrison ranks fifth on the Big 12 leaderboard in blocks (1.6).
Five different Cowboys have posted a double-double this year: Quion Williams (x2), Dailey (x2), Mike Marsh, Garrison and Small.

Close Encounters:

In seven of their losses this season, the Cowboys have had the ball in the final 20 seconds with a chance to tie or take the lead.
OSU is 0-7 in games decided by five points in either direction.
KenPom's "Luck" metric, which compares team's expected winning percentage (based on efficiency) to its actual record, rates the Cowboys 355th out of 362 teams.

The Series with West Virginia:

OSU and West Virginia have split 24 meetings all-time. All but one have come since the 2012-13 season when the Mountaineers joined the Big 12.
The teams have split four matchups in the past two seasons with each side holding serve at home. Last year OSU won 67-60 in Stillwater behind Bryce Thompson's 15 points but fell 85-67 at WVU Coliseum.
Traditionally, OSU has fared better in Morgantown (6-5) than on Eddie Sutton Court (5-6). The Mountaineers are one of just two Big 12 schools with winning records inside Gallagher-Iba Arena (Kansas is 38-36).
Mike Boynton Jr. is 7-6 against WVU with victories in four of the last six.

Jan. 2, 2023 (Stillwater) | OSU, 67-70
Bryce Thompson scored 15, including a pair of free throws with a little over 4:00 left to put the Cowboys in front for good. John-Michael Wright added 11 points and four assists. Erik Stevenson (17 points) knocked three triples in a span over just over a minute to give West Virginia its first lead, 53-51, with 7:17 left but fouled out a minute later. The Mountaineers managed just five more points the rest of the way.

Feb. 20, 2023 (Morgantown) | WVU, 85-67
Big scoring nights from Stevenson (23 points on 5-of-6 three-point shooting) and Tre Mitchell (22 points) lifted WVU. The Mountaineers used a 16-0 run to build a 32-14 lead with 4:02 remaining in the first half and maintained it. Caleb Asberry had 15 for OSU, which made just 2-of-19 threes.

Scouting the Mountaineers:

West Virginia lost all five starters from last year's NCAA tournament team plus the head coach. Bob Huggins stepped aside in July after a 16-year run, leaving Josh Eilert in command on an interim basis.
Each of the Mountaineers' top five scorers are transfers and all of them are in their fourth or fifth seasons of college basketball.
The Mountaineers finished non-conference play with a 5-8 mark but are beginning to turn the corner after upsets of No. 25 Texas and No. 3 Kansas over the past two weeks.
WVU's improvement is due in part to a mid-December court ruling granting immediate eligibility for second-time transfers, including guards RaeQuan Battle (Washington/Montana St.) and Noah Farrakhan, (ECU/Eastern Mich.).
The 6-5 Battle averages a team-high 17.9 points and has scored 20+ in five of his nine games.
Farrakhan has put up 11.3 points in 24.3 minutes.
Former Arizona point guard Kerr Kriisa was activated around the same time after sitting out the first nine games due to an NCAA suspension. He's averaged 10.0 points and a team-best 4.8 assists over 10 games and been the team's best three-point option (2.5 per game, 39.1%).
6-9 Iona grad transfer Quinn Slazinski (13.4 ppg) adds additional size and experience at the forward spot.
The Mountaineers have been without 6-11 fifth-year Jesse Edwards (the ACC's blocks leader last year at Syracuse) for the past nine games due to injury. Prior to it, he was averaging 14.8 points, 8.7 rebounds and 1.7 blocks.
Akok Akok, a fifth-year big man with past stops at UConn and Georgetown, has shouldered more of the load in his absence.
Reserves have accounted for 42.8% of the Mountaineer minutes (10th nationally).
WVU is averaging a league-low 72.7 points on 41.2% shooting and has surrendered a league-high 68.4 points. The Mountaineers have produced a league-high 22.6% of their points from the foul line.

Matchup Mashup:

James Dickey is working as the senior advisor on this year's West Virginia staff. He served as an assistant coach at OSU under three different regimes: Eddie Sutton (2002-06), Sean Sutton (2006-08) and Travis Ford (2014-16).
West Virginia athletic director Wren Baker started his professional career as an operations assistant with the OSU men's basketball program (2001-05) under the elder Sutton and helped the team to the 2004 Final Four and the 2005 Sweet 16.

A Cowboy win would...

Be their first in Big 12 play (1-6) and boost their overall record to 9-11.
Snap a three-game home losing streak and make them 8-5 this season inside GIA.
Give them a 13-12 lead in the all-time series with WVU.
Make them 6-6 against WVU in Stillwater with three consecutive wins.

Up Next: at Kansas | Tuesday, 8 p.m. CT (ESPN)

OSU is at Allen Fieldhouse to take on No. 3 Kansas (16-3, 4-2 heading into Saturday afternoon's game at Iowa State).
The Jayhawks won the first meeting in Stillwater, 90-66, behind Hunter Dickinson's 21 points. Bryce Thompson led the Cowboys with 20.
OSU seeks its first win in Lawrence since 2018.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Caleb Asberry

Eric Dailey Jr.

Brandon Garrison

Jarius Hicklen

Mike Marsh

Javon Small

Bryce Thompson

Quion Williams

John-Michael Wright

Oklahoma State University Athletics