The Oklahoma State Cowboys were a weird team last season and it’s going to be very hard to predict how this team will handle the new season. Be prepared to expect anything with this team.
2013-14 Season Recap
The Cowboys were a hard team to peg last season from a purely statistical perspective.
The numbers look really good: Oklahoma State was third in the Big 12 in field goal percentage and two-point percentage, fourth in three-point percentage, third in turnovers committed (the fewest, not the most, a positive rating for the team), third in field goal percentage defense, third in two-point defense, second in three-point defense.
With all of these top-three ratings in various field goal percentage categories – on both offense and defense – how did the Cowboys wind up with the No. 8 seed in the Big 12 Tournament, needing a few late-season wins to feel safe about the NCAA tournament?
A few specific statistics provide some clarity with respect to the Cowboys and why they didn’t achieve as much as they could have. First, the Cowboys were killed on the glass. They finished ninth in the Big 12 and number 282 in the nation (out of 351 Division I-A programs) in rebounding percentage, grabbing under 49 percent of all available rebounds.
The other big statistic which crushed the Cowboys is that they had a negative assist-turnover ratio. The Cowboys were okay in terms of ball control, with 14.2 turnovers allowed per game. That’s not great, but it’s not really bad over the course of a full season.
However, the Cowboys handed out only 13.6 assists per game, and that’s very poor. Broken into halves, that’s about seven assists per 20-minute half of basketball, nearly one assist every three minutes. The Cowboys were far too much of a one-on-one team last season, and that’s something which definitely has to change this season.
The other thing that clearly went wrong for Oklahoma State last season, and really doesn’t need a lot of numbers to be proven, is simply that the Cowboys couldn’t win on the road. Oklahoma State won only one Big 12 regular season game away from home, and that was against TCU, the last-place team in the conference. The Cowboys won a play-in game in the Big 12 Tournament on a neutral court, but they won only one true road game in the conference. OSU was so good at home and so inconsistent on the road that its numbers were inflated due to the gaudy home stats.
Offseason Changes
There are big changes ahead for the Cowboys this season. The primary change is that Marcus Smart, taken sixth in the 2014 NBA Draft, is gone. Smart averaged 18 points and six rebounds last season for the Cowboys… and he didn’t even play that well. Smart’s outside shot was inconsistent (30 percent from three-point range), and he got suspended for multiple games in the middle of the season for attacking a fan in a loss to Texas Tech. Oklahoma State benefited from Smart in some ways, but it was hurt by Smart’s solo-flyer tendencies in others (especially the assist-turnover ratio and the lack of assists mentioned above).
The other loss that will really matter for Oklahoma State is Markel Brown. The forward averaged 17.2 points and just over five rebounds for the Cowboys, holding down the fort when Smart was suspended. Brown was a much more consistent player, arguably a bigger loss than Smart.
There are two key players to focus on, players who either didn’t play at all for OSU last season or who didn’t play nearly as much as they hoped. Newcomer Anthony Hickey comes from LSU as a transfer. He averaged just over eight points and just under four assists for the Tigers. He never really came into his own and is hoping a change of scenery gives him a boost in his senior season. Michael Cobbins was supposed to be this team’s best low-post player last season, but he was injured early in the season and never had a chance to develop.
Projected Finish
The Cowboys have more questions than any other team in the Big 12. However, Le’Bryan Nash is not one of them. The star forward averaged 13.9 points, 5.5 rebounds last season. He’s joined by shooting guard Phil Forte as a dependable part of the starting lineup. How Cobbins, Hickey, and other contributors blend in will show how good this team can be. Hickey probably needs to be great for this team to be good – it’s hard to say how well he’ll be, but the answer is probably going to be no.
Pick: Eighth In Big 12, NIT bid
