'We've grown a lot': How Oklahoma State men's basketball's win over TCU is step toward digging out of hole
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STILLWATER — Oklahoma State’s energy was running low.
John-Michael Wright knew it. So did Tyreek Smith. Even Kalib Boone — the Cowboys’ Energizer Bunny — noticed.
The Cowboys were sleepwalking offensively. A slew of turnovers — mostly lazy or unforced errors — turned a 19-point lead into a two-point deficit to TCU. With 3:57 remaining, time was running out.
“You dug yourself into this hole,” OSU coach Mike Boynton told his team in the huddle at that moment. “But the tougher team is going to win.”
Challenge accepted.
Out of the timeout, Wright made a go-ahead 3-pointer from the top of the key. He made a floater on the next possession.
After a TCU timeout, Wright saved the basketball from going out of bounds on a Moussa Cisse block, throwing it backward and high over his head to somehow set up a Boone dunk.
OSU never trailed the rest of the way.
“I believe we’ve grown a lot,” Wright said. “We still need to grow more because we don’t need to be giving up 20-point leads like that. It makes the game a lot more difficult. It gives our coach a hard time on the sideline.
“Just, basketball is basketball. It’s up and down everywhere. Just being able to stay level is what we have to continue to keep growing at. Once we do that, I think we’ll really be a tough team.”
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The Cowboys are on a high wave of emotion right now.
They’ve won three straight games and five of their past six. They’re back in the national picture with a .500 Big 12 record. They’re seventh in the standings but also one game behind third place, which is deadlocked with a four-way tie.
The woes of a mid-January swoon have disappeared.
“We dug ourselves in a hole,” Boone said. “We just gotta keep climbing and figure out a way to get out. Hopefully, by March we hear our names called and go play in the tournament.”
OSU took a big step forward Saturday.
Early in the season, the Cowboys struggled to maintain big leads.
They squandered a 13-point lead in the second game of the season to Southern Illinois. Eight days later, they blew a 17-point lead to UCF.
Both losses hurt then and will likely hurt come March.
But they served a purpose for the Cowboys.
“I came in here on Nov. 10 after losing to Southern Illinois and I feel bad that we’re not there yet,” Boynton said, “but I had a vision for our team always getting better as the year goes along.
“If you don’t struggle early, it's hard to grow. We don’t want to lose. The kids are out there trying their best, but they don’t know what they don’t know. Sometimes you have to go through difficult moments to figure out what works best for you.”
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Things certainly still remained hard on and off the court.
OSU forward Woody Newton’s father passed away around that time. He left the team for a period.
The Cowboys later blew a 15-point lead at Kansas to open Big 12 play. They hit a three-game losing streak not long after with Moussa Cisse sidelined due to an ankle injury. Avery Anderson III has battled a lingering wrist injury.
But this team has stuck together.
“If you do that and you stick with the play and you don’t deviate,” Boynton said, “and you block out the outside noise that tells you on Nov. 11 that your coach should be fired and everybody’s not good enough to be on scholarship here, then you have a chance to really do some special things.”
OSU has also adjusted.
It’s gone with a primary rotation that centers on playing smaller. Newton has emerged as a strong stretch forward. Cisse has gotten healthy. Boone is playing at an elite level.
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So, when things got tough against TCU, there was no panic.
OSU led by 19 early in the second half.
Wright committed a flagrant foul early in the half, grabbing Shahada Wells’ jersey battling for a loose basketball.
That was the opening for TCU, which was searching for an answer. It led to a 15-1 run that cut OSU’s lead to five with 13:43 remaining.
“There were a couple plays there, the calls went their way,” Boynton said. “That’s all it takes.”
OSU did not make a field goal for nearly five minutes and committed a handful of turnovers. The Cowboys made lazy passes. They threw the ball away.
But even with old offensive issues resurfacing through most of the half, the Cowboys worked to stay locked in. They tried to get their energy up.
They had been in that situation before. Lessons were learned.
“Earlier in the season when other teams had runs on us, we kinda dialed back and our energy was lost,” Wright said. “In the huddle today when they made that run, we got together and said no matter what we gotta keep our energy up because our energy is what got us the lead in the first place.”
After TCU took the lead, the game was tied twice more.
Then, Wright, Caleb Asberry and Boone — who scored four of his 25 points in the final 56 seconds — went to work. They closed out a huge win, not only for their postseason chances but also their growth.
“I thought our guys’ response to their response was obviously critical,” Boynton said. “We lost the lead there and had to make some plays to win. Our guys made winning plays throughout the final stretch of the game.”
Jacob Unruh covers college sports for The Oklahoman. You can send your story ideas to him at junruh@oklahoman.com or on Twitter at @jacobunruh. Support his work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.
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This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Oklahoma State basketball digging out of hole, shows growth vs. TCU
