Game Notes: at #8 Kansas

Oklahoma State (9-11, 1-6) at #8/9 Kansas (16-4, 4-3)
Tuesday, Jan. 30, 2024 | 8:05 p.m. CT
Lawrence, Kan. | Allen Fieldhouse (16,300)

Tickets: Sold Out
TV: ESPN (Bob Wischusen & Fran Fraschilla)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Internet Radio: okstate.com/listen & The Varsity Sports App
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Series: KU leads 124-60 (66-12 in Lawrence)
Last: Jan. 16, 2024 in Stillwater (KU, 90-66)

The Basics:

The Oklahoma State Cowboys travel to Allen Fieldhouse in Lawrence, Kan. on Tuesday night for a date with the No. 8 Kansas Jayhawks. Tipoff is 8 p.m. CT.
OSU will look to build on momentum from Saturday's 70-66 home victory over West Virginia -- its first in league play. Freshman center Brandon Garrison scored 20 points and point guard Javon Small added a double-double with 15 points, 12 boards and seven assists.
Kansas fell on the road to No. 23 Iowa State over the weekend but has won 15 straight on its home floor.
This is the first repeat opponent on OSU's 2023-24 schedule. The teams met two weeks ago in Stillwater. Kansas prevailed, 90-66, behind 23 points from Hunter Dickinson.
Dickinson (1,994 collegiate points) and OSU's John-Michael Wright (1,990) will both take aim at 2,000 on Tuesday night.

Watch/Listen:
The game will air on ESPN with Bob Wischusen and Fran Fraschilla. Fans with ESPN in their television packages can stream it live and on-demand through the ESPN app. 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.

Last Time on Cowboy Basketball
Jan. 27, 2024 in Stillwater | OSU 70, West Virginia 66

Javon Small hit a go-ahead three with 53 seconds left and OSU held for its first Big 12 win.
Brandon Garrison matched his career-high with 20 points to go with four steals and four assists.
Small claimed his second double-double with 15 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists.
OSU outscored WVU 20-8 at the foul line (16-3 after halftime) and limited WVU to just three second-chance points.
WVU connected on 10-of-22 threes, led by Kerr Kriisa (21 points on 6-of-8) and Quinn Slazinski (18 on 4-of-6).
OSU made just 8-of-27 from deep (.296) but nailed each of its last three attempts to erase a 61-54 deficit over the final 5:11. John-Michael Wright and Bryce Thompson hit on back-to-back to cap an 8-0 Cowboy run.
Akok Akok's free throws gave WVU its final lead, 66-64 with 1:12 to go, but OSU scored the last six points, beginning with Small's go-ahead triple.
Garrison forced a steal and made two free throws, then Thompson grabbed a missed three and converted one more for the final margin.

On the Way to 2K:
OSU's John-Michael Wright needs just 10 more points to reach the 2,000-mark for his college career. The graduate guard scored the first 1,498 points in three seasons at High Point and has added close to 500 more in parts of two seasons at OSU.
KU's Hunter Dickinson enters the night with 1,994 points.
ESPN Stats and Information has access to career and game-by-game totals going back to the 1996-97 season. In that roughly 25-year span, no two players have reached the 2,000-mark in the same contest.

1. Max Abmas (Texas) -- 2,914
2. Jahmir Young (Maryland -- 2,381
3. Isaiah Stevens (Colorado St.) -- 2,108
4. Travis Evee (Rice) -- 2,081
4. Armando Bacot (North Carolina) -- 2,081
6 Antonio Reeves (Kentucky) -- 2,053
7. Tyler Thomas (Hofstra) -- 2,028
8. Elijah Pepper (UC Davis) -- 2,023
9. Zach Edy (Purdue) -- 2,017
10. Marques Warrick (Northern Ky.) -- 2,007
10. Hunter Dickinson (Kansas) -- 1,994
12. John-Michael Wright (Oklahoma St.) -- 1,990

OSU vs. Nationally-Ranked Opponents:

The Big 12 boasts eight of the top-25 teams in this week's AP Poll. Great for the league. Not so great for OSU, which plays 12 of its 18 conference games against that group of schools.
OSU notched three wins over AP top-25 opponents last season: No. 12 Iowa State and No. 15 TCU at home and No. 11 Iowa State in Ames but is still in search of its first in 2023-24 (0-3).
OSU's last victory over an AP top-10 opponent came on the road at No. 1 Baylor on Jan. 15, 2022.
Head coach Mike Boynton Jr. has posted 23 wins over nationally-ranked foes – third-most in OSU history behind hall of famers Eddie Sutton (49) and Henry Iba (27).

Team Trends:

OSU picked up its first Big 12 win on Saturday after droppings its first six contests. Don't be too quick to count out the Cowboys. The last two OSU teams to open 0-6 regrouped with strong finishes. The 2016-17 team started 0-6 but rallied to reach 9-9. The 2019-20 squad went from 0-8 to 7-11.
Saturday's win over West Virginia marked the first time this season that OSU has won a game when tied or trailing at halftime (1-9). The Mountaineers led 33-32 at the break.
Saturday was also the Cowboys first "close" win. They had been 0-7 previously in game decided by five points in either direction.
It was also the second time that OSU has won a game when out-shoot from the field (2-9). WVU finished at 42.9% to OSU's 40.4%, but the Cowboys had a 20-8 edge at the free throw line.
OSU is 7-2 this season (and 26-5 over the last two) when out-shooting its opponent.
Per KenPom, OSU opponents have scored 57.5% of their points on two-point field goals (15th highest nationally).
By contrast, the Cowboys have taken 45.1% of their shots (27th) and done 37.8% of their overall damage from deep (26th).
OSU's 9.1 threes-per-game is second on the Big 12 leaderboard behind BYU's nation-best 12.1.
The Cowboys ranks fourth in the Big 12 and No. 31 nationally in defensive rebounding percentage, snapping up more than three-quarters (75.2%) of enemy misses.
Some Frosh Perspective:
13 Big 12 freshmen are averaging at least 10 minutes per game. Five of them are Cowboys.
Rookies have combined for roughly a third of OSU's points (34.0%) and minutes (34.5%). Both percentages lead the Big 12.
Only five of the league's 42 active freshmen have been on the court for more than half of their team's minutes. That group includes Eric Dailey Jr. (61.0%) and Brandon Garrison (53.5%).

Individual Notes:

Bryce Thompson is 20th on OSU's career three-point list (121) and needs just five more to catch Melvin Sanders (126 from 2000-03) for 19th.
Jarius Hicklen has connected on a three-pointer in 16 consecutive games (Nov. 20-Present) and in 19 of 20 this season.
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.
Javon Small ranks among the Big 12 leaders in free throw percentage (2nd, .853), three-point field goals (7th, 2.16), assists (6th, 4.8), defensive rebounds (6th, 5.1) and minutes (9th, 32:30).
Brandon Garrison ranks fifth on the Big 12 leaderboard in blocks (1.5).

The Series with Kansas:

KU holds a 124-60 series lead with six consecutive wins.
OSU has won just 12 times in 78 trips to Lawrence. The most recent came in 2018 when first-year head coach Mike Boynton Jr. became the first Big 12 coach to sweep a home-and-home from the Jayhawks under Bill Self.
A win on Tuesday night would make Boynton the first Cowboy head coach since Henry Iba to win multiple games at Allen Fieldhouse. The Hall of Famer was 8-19 in Lawrence during his 36 years on the OSU bench (1934-70). OSU teams are 4-44 there since his retirement.
The last OSU victory over Kansas came Jan. 12, 2021 in Stillwater (75-70) behind 18 points from Big 12 Player of the Year Cade Cunningham.

Scouting the Jayhawks:

Kansas (16-4, 4-3 Big 12) dropped to No. 8 and No. 9 in this week's AP and Coaches Polls after stumbling at Iowa State on Saturday.
The Jayhawks are 1-3 in Big 12 road games (the lone win came at OSU two weeks ago) but have a perfect 3-0 mark at home. They're 10-0 overall at Allen Fieldhouse with victories in 15 straight. The last loss came more than a year ago (Jan. 21, 2023 to TCU).
The Jayhawks average a nation-best 20.7 assists per game and also rank among the national leaders in field goal percentage (4th, .505) and assist-to-turnover ratio (9th, 1.74).
KU boasts the conference's individual leaders in scoring, rebounding and assists.
Fifth-year senior Kevin McCullar (19.8 ppg) has scored at least 12 points in every game and topped 20 on 11 occasions.
7-foot-2 Michigan transfer Hunter Dickinson -- a consensus preseason All-American averages 18.9 points and ranks among the top-5 nationally in rebounds per game (11.3). He's posted a double-double in 11 of his 20 contests.
Fifth-year senior guard Dajaun Harris -- last year's Big 12 Defensive Player of the Year -- also excels as a table-setter, averaging a conference-best 6.9 assists with a 2.80 A:TO ratio.
They're joined by junior forward KJ Adams, a 2023 honorable mention All-Big 12 pick who averages 12.6 points on 61.9% shooting.

Matchup Mashup:

KU's Bill Self played and coached at Oklahoma State. He was a four-year letterman (1981-85) and helped the Cowboys win the 1983 Big 8 tournament. Self later served as an OSU assistant under both Leonard Hamilton (1986-90) and Eddie Sutton (1990-93) before landing his first head coaching job at Oral Roberts.
OSU junior point guard Javon Small played his freshman season at East Carolina under Joe Dooley (2022-23). Dooley rejoined the Kansas staff last season as its Director of Student-Athlete Development.
Bryce Thompson played his freshman season (2020-21) at Kansas before transferring to OSU. He scored his 1,000th collegiate point against the Jayhawks two weeks ago.
Thompson's father, Rod, was Self's first point guard at Tulsa during the 1997-98 season.
Thompson's maternal grandfather, Marshall Rogers, started his career at Kansas playing for Ted Owens. He was on the freshman team in 1971-72 (the last year before freshman became eligible for varsity competition) and averaged 7.7 points as a sophomore before moving on to UTRGV and eventually the NBA.
OSU freshman Brandon Garrison and KU's Elmarko Jackson were teammates in the 2023 McDonald's All-American game.

A Cowboy win would...

Be their second in a row and boost their record to 10-11 (2-6 Big 12).
Snap a six-game losing streak to Kansas and be their first at Allen Fieldhouse since 2018.
Make Boynton the first OSU coach since Henry Iba to win twice in Lawrence.

Up Next: Kansas State
Saturday, 1 p.m. CT (Big 12 NOW on ESPN+)

The Cowboys are home Saturday to face the K-State Wildcats (14-6, 4-3 heading into Tuesday night's home game against Oklahoma).
The teams met two weeks earlier in Manhattan when KSU overcame a 10-point second half deficit to win 70-66 behind 23 points from Arthur Kaluma.

Next Event

Players Mentioned

Eric Dailey Jr.

Brandon Garrison

Jarius Hicklen

Javon Small

Bryce Thompson

John-Michael Wright

Oklahoma State University Athletics