Small scores career-high 34 in regular season finale

Saturday, March 9

Provo, Utah

8:00 PM

Oklahoma State University

12-19,4-14Big 12

BYU

22-9,10-8Big 12

Oklahoma St.

BYU

March 09, 2024 | Cowboy Basketball

Box Score Postgame Notes Game Book (PDF)

PROVO, Utah -- Javon Small scored 27 of his career-high 34 points over the final 10:00, but his hot streak came too late to save Oklahoma State from an 85-71 loss to No. 20/23 BYU in the regular season finale for both teams.

OSU (12-19, 4-14) will be the No. 13 seed in next week's Phillips 66 Big 12 Men's Basketball Championship, facing No. 12 seed UCF in Tuesday's first round (11:30 a.m. CT, ESPN+). A win would set up a second-round rematch with the fifth-seeded Cougars (22-9, 10-8) on Wednesday morning.

BYU struggled from the three-point line in last month's loss in Stillwater and made just 4-of-19 in Saturday's first half before cutting loose.

Up 30-27 at halftime, the Cougars scored the first 13 points out of the locker room, bookended by a pair of Spencer Johnson threes. Jaxson Robinson's basket with 10:10 to go capped another 10-0 run that make it 62-37.

Over that 10-minute stretch, BYU made 11 of 15 shots, including 6-of-8 from three.

Small dominated the next 10 minutes for OSU, outscoring the entire BYU team 27-23 the rest of the way. He sank 9-of-11 shots including all four of his three-point attempts.

The junior point guard from South Bend, Ind. accounted for 13 points during a 14-1 Cowboy run that cut the deficit to 64-51 with 7:36 to play.

Justin McBride's three-point play made it a 10-point game – 67-57 – with 6:12 to go, but that's the closest OSU could get before time ran out.

For the game, Small was 10-of-19 from the field, 5-of-9 from three and 9-of-10 at the foul line. His 30-point effort was the first by a Cowboy in more than two years.

Eric Dailey Jr. and Brandon Garrison addednine points each for OSU, which shot just under 45% from the field on 6-of-21 three-point shooting. Prior to Small's salvo, the Cowboys had missed 13 straight from deep.

Reserve Fousseyni Traore (19 points) and Robinson (17) led the scoring for BYU and accounted for 36 of the team's 44 bench points. Johnson (14 points, 10 rebounds) added a double-double.

The Cougars shot 50.8% and made a dozen three-pointers, helped by an 8-for-12 second half effort.