Game Notes: at #5 Houston

Tuesday, February 6

Houston, Texas

6:00 PM

Oklahoma State University

Houston

February 05, 2024 | Cowboy Basketball

Watch Listen Live Stats Series History OSU Notes (PDF)Houston Notes (PDF)

Oklahoma State (10-12, 2-7) at #5/5 Houston (19-3, 6-3)
Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024 | 6:01 p.m. CT
Houston, Texas | Fertitta Center

TV: ESPN2 (Rich Hollenberg & Fran Fraschilla)
Radio: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker & John Holcomb)
Live Stats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
Series: OSU leads 13-9 (4-6 in Houston)
Last: Dec. 18, 2021 in Fort Worth (UH, 72-61)

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The Basics:

Winners of two of their last three, the Oklahoma State Cowboys (10-12, 2-7) face a tough task in Tuesday's 6 p.m. CT tip at No. 5 Houston (19-3, 6-3).
The Cougars are 12-0 this season at the Fertitta Center and their 17-game home court winning streak is tied for the nation's third longest. The Cowboys are winless on the road this year (0-5).
It's the first Big 12 era meeting between the programs, though they're already well-acquainted after playing three non-conference games in the past five seasons.
OSU defeated the Cougars on their home floor in 2019 and leads the all-time series, 13-9. Both schools were members of the Missouri Valley Conference from 1951-57.
The Cowboys are coming off of a 75-72 win over Kansas State. Javon Small led a group of five double-figure scorers with 18 points and seven assists and Quion Williams logged his third double-double with a career-high 17 points and 10 boards.
UH fell at Kansas on Saturday but is one of five three-loss teams atop the Big 12 standings.
The Cougars have held opponents to nation-lows for points (54.0) and shooting (.369).
OSU ranks second in the Big 12 in three-pointers per game (9.0).

Watch:
The game will air on ESPN2 with Rich Hollenberg and Fran Fraschilla, Fans with ESPN2 in their television packages can stream the game live or on-demand through the ESPN app.

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.

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Last Time on Cowboy Basketball:
Feb. 3, 2024 in Stillwater | OSU 75, K-State 72

Javon Small led a group of five double-figure scorers with 18 points and Quion Williams recorded a double-double for OSU, which grabbed the lead with a 12-0 run just before halftime and maintained it with a 59% second half shooting performance.
Small was 3-of-5 from deep, and dished out seven assists. Williams scored a career-high 17 to go with 10 boards.
With senior guard Bryce Thompson sidelined, freshman Jamyron Keller stepped up with 12 points in 24 minutes. He scored just four points in 26 minutes in eight previous Big 12 games.
Wright's three-pointer with just over 19:00 to play snapped a 29-all tie, and the Cowboys played from in front the rest of the way.
Tylor Perry scored all 19 of his points in the second half on five three-pointers for the Wildcats, who kept pace but could never overtake. Keller split a pair of free throws with 12 seconds left to make it 75-72 and OSU avoided overtime when K-State missed a pair of off-balance threes on its final possession.

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OSU vs. Nationally-Ranked Opponents:

Six Big 12 teams are ranked and three others are receiving votes in this week's AP Poll. Great for the league. Not so great for OSU, which plays 13 of its 18 conference games against that group of schools, including seven of the nine remaining.
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 (0-4).
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). 12 of his victories have come inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.
All-time OSU is 76-83 on its home floor against nationally-ranked teams.

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Wright Scores 2,000th Career Point:

OSU's John-Michael Wright scored his 2,000th collegiate point on Jan. 30 at Kansas. The former High Point guard is in his second season with the Cowboys and fifth overall.
Wright (2,016 points) is one of 13 active DI players with 2,000+.
College Basketball Reference maintains an all-time list of 2,000-point scorers at the major conference leve. Wright's 10-point effort against K-State jumped him from 643rd into a tie for 607th. He needs only 51 more to crack the top-500.
Wright is is one of just 25 players with the combo of 2,000 points, 500 rebounds, 300 assists and 250 three-point field goals.

Individual Notes:

Javon Small is one of just 12 Division I players who are averaging at least 5.0 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game and one of only four on that list from one of the six major conferences (joined Iowa State's Tamin Lipsey, UConn's Tristen Newton and Seton Hall's Kadary Richmond).
Jawun Evans (2016-17), Byron Eaton (2008-09) and Doug Gottlieb (3x from 1997-00) are the only Big 12 era Cowboys who have exceeded those standards over a full season.
Freshman Jamyron Keller had totaled just four points in 26 Big 12 minutes coming into the day but stepped up Saturday with 12 points in 24 minutes.
Brandon Garrison ranks fourth on the Big 12 leaderboard in blocks (1.55). The K-State game on Saturday marked the sixth time this season that he's blocked at least three.
In Big 12 play, Garrison has the league's highest free throw rate (79.2) -- a stat the shows the ratio of a free throw attempts to field goal attempts and generally reflects a player's ability to draw fouls and get to the line. In that span, just one player has topped 80.0 over a full season (Iowa State's Jameel McKay at 92.3 in 2014-15).
John-Michael Wright has scored in double-figures in all five games since rejoining the starting lineup on Jan. 20 and in nine of his 10 starts this year. He's averaging 11.0 points as a starter compared to 4.4 points in 12 games off the bench.
Wright's shooting has come around over the last month. He's 20-of-52 (.385) since Jan. 1 compared to 13-of-50 (.260) in November/December.
Boynton credits Wright's off-season work or helping him weather that early storm. The veteran guard sank more than 25,000 three-point shots during the summer session.
Small ranks among the Big 12 season leaders in three-point percentage (4th, .404), defensive rebounding (6th, 4.9), assists (7th, 4.8), free throw percentage (7th, .851), threes per game (7th, 2.19) and minutes (9th, 32:39).
Quion Williams' double-double was his third of the season and the ninth by an OSU player this season. Five different Cowboys have posted at least one double-double (tied with Oklahoma for most from any one Big 12 school) with Williams joined by Small (2x), Eric Dailey Jr. (x2), Mike Marsh and Brandon Garrison.

Team Trends:

Don't be too quick to count out the Cowboys. The last two OSU teams to drop their first six Big 12 games went on to post strong finishes. The 2016-17 team climbed from 0-6 to 9-9, and the 2019-20 squad finished 7-11 after an 0-8 start.
The Cowboys kept opponent off of the foul line lately. Their nine Big 12 foes have combined for a league-low 9.9 free throws on 13.6 attempts per game. That's a significant change from the non-conference season when OSU surrendered 12.3 free throw points (third-most out of 14 teams) on 16.8 attempts.
OSU swatted six of K-State's 38 two-point attempts on Saturday for a season-best 15.8% block percentage.
OSU ranks among the nation's top-40 teams in defensive rebounding percentage (37th, 74.8%) and has held foes to an average of 8.4 second-chance points (8.2 during Big 12 play).
OSU is 7-2 this season (and 99-27 under Boynton) when out-shooting its opponent.
Per KenPom, OSU opponents have scored 57.6% of their points on two-point field goals (14th highest nationally) while taking just 31.0% of their shots from behind the three-point line (24th lowest). By contrast, the Cowboys have taken 45.2% of their shots (27th) and done 38.0% of their overall damage from deep (25th).
OSU's 9.0 threes-per-game is second on the Big 12 leaderboard behind BYU's nation-best 12.1.
A 10-for-27 performance against TCU (Jan. 23) marked the seventh time that OSU has made double-digit threes this year -- one more than all of last season.

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The Series with Houston:

This is the first chapter of the Big 12 rivalry between OSU and Houston, but the schools are already well acquainted after three recent non-conference games.
OSU is 13-9 all-time against the Cougars (4-6 in Houston and 1-0 at the Fertitta Center).
The teams met 17 times during the 1950s when both were members of the Missouri Valley. The Cowboys faced Houston twice annually before joining the Big Eight Conference in 1958.
OSU fell to host Houston in the finals of the 1960 Bluebonnet Classic but avenged itself with a 75-60 win in the 1965 NCAA Midwest Regional semifinals at Kansas State's Ahearn Field House.
Mike Boynton Jr. and Kelvin Sampson revived the series 53 years later with a home-and-home agreement. Houston's Dec. 8, 2018 win was its first ever at Gallagher-Iba Arena (1-8). OSU returned the favor on Dec. 15, 2019 with a 61-55 road win at the newly renovated Fertitta Center.
The teams staged a third, neutral-site game at Fort Worth's Dickies Arena on Dec. 18, 2021. Houston won 72-61 behind Jamal Shead's 18 points and eight assists.

Scouting the Cougars:

Kelvin Sampson has more than 750 wins on his future hall of fame resume, but some of his most impressive work has come over the past decade.
In 10 seasons at Houston (2014-Pr.), Sampson has turned a once-struggling program into a national power and helped usher in a new era in the Big 12 Conference.
The Cougars have appeared in each of the last five NCAA Tournaments, highlighted by a Final Four (2021), two Elite Eights (2019, 2022) and a Sweet 16 (2023).
Winners of four of the last five American Athletic Conference regular season titles, Houston now finds itself in the hunt for its first Big 12 banner with a 6-3 record at the halfway point.
Houston is No. 5 in both AP and Coaches polls but is a favorite of the computers, ranking No. 1 in both NCAA NET and KenPom.
The Cougars lead the nation in field goal percentage defense (.369), scoring defense (54.0 ppg), turnover margin (+7.6) and scoring margin (+19.6).
Houston is shooting just 43.2% as a team but averages nearly 13 extra attempts per game than its opponents, thanks in large part to a .390 offensive rebounding percentage (4th nationally).
Beating the nation's top defense takes teamwork. Per KenPom, Cougar opponents have logged assists on a nation-best 64.6% of their baskets, but foes also average nearly as many turnovers (16.5) as field goal makes (18.0).
Sampson has the luxury of a fourth-year starting point guard in Jamal Shead, a two-time All-AAC selection and the league's 2023 defensive player of the year. He averages 12.0 points, 5.9 assists, 2.1 steals and sports a nearly 3-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio.
Shead has a some talented weapons to work with, including Baylor transfer L.J. Cryer. The 2023 third team All-Big 12 pick is the Cougars' top scorer (15.5 ppg) and is averaging a league-best 3.1 threes on 38.6% accuracy.
6-7 forward J'Wan Roberts – the Big 12's preseason freshman of the year – averages 8.8 points and a team-best 7.4 rebounds.
Redshirt sophomore guard Emanuel Sharp has taken a leap forward this season, averaging 12.1 points and 2.1 threes.

Matchup Mashup:

The Cougars are 12-0 at home this year and are a combined 88-6 at the Fertitta Center since its 2018 renovation. One of those six losses, of course, came to OSU in 2019.
Houston's 17-game home winning streak is tied for the nation's third-longest behind only Virginia (22 heading into Monday night's home game against Miami) and Towson (18).
Houston is the first of the four Big 12 newcomers that OSU has faced this year. BYU will be the first visit Gallagher-Iba Arena on Feb. 17.
OSU is 15-14 all-time against Sampson (14-12 at Oklahoma and 1-2 at Houston). Those 15 wins are tied for the most by any one program (Arizona is 15-3).

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A Cowboy win would...

Be their third in four tries.
Boost their overall mark to 11-12 (3-7 Big 12).
Give them back-to-back victories for the first time in more than a month (OSU won its last five non-conference games from Dec. 10 to Jan. 3).
Be their first true road win (1-5).
Be their first over an AP top-25 opponent (home or away) since Feb. 11, 2023 at No. 11 Iowa State.
Be their highest-rated road win since taking down No. 1 Baylor on Jan. 15, 2022.
Make them 14-9 all-time vs. Houston (5-6 in Houston and 2-0 at Fertitta Center).
End the Cougars' 17-game home winning streak.

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Up Next: at Oklahoma
Saturday, 6 p.m. CT (Big 12 Now on ESPN+)
OSU makes its final Big 12 era visit to Norman this weekend. It's the first of two Bedlam Series matchups in a span of 15 days. The Sooners make the return trip to Stillwater on Feb. 24.