Cowboys Get One. More Ahead?
Happy New Year, Cowboys hoops.
Happy, at last.
The long wait is over, OSU won Saturday, for the first time in 2020. And the Pokes did so impressively, running away from Texas A&M on the road, ultimately posting a 72-63 victory that was much needed on many fronts.
Before Saturday’s Big 12/SEC Challenge clash, the Cowboys were one of three teams from the top seven conferences yet to secure a win in the new year, along with Ole Miss and Vanderbilt. So, good to get that out of the way. The struggles were beginning to wear on the Pokes, and Saturday should help, after they played and shot well, showing the excellent ball movement that had been missing for more than a month.
"We're a struggling team right now with a lot of talent, and we're still trying to figure it all out," said forward Jonathan Laurent, who scored 12 points in continuing to provide some impact. "This was very important to us, and we worked really hard to get this one."
Now it’s about getting another one.
A Big 12 one.
And that challenge will be firmly in their face with little time to enjoy the win at A&M – the Kansas Jayhawks are due in Gallagher-Iba Arena Monday night. The No. 3 Kansas Jayhawks, 16-3 overall and 5-1 in the conference.
Now, it’s not been an easy week for KU, with a tight win over Tennessee Saturday following the ugliness of its brawling ending against Kansas State, which featured an unwanted snapshot of the Jayhawks’ Silvio De Souza hoisting a stool over his head with ill intent.
Maybe the Jayhawks are shaken somewhat. Maybe not; teams are tightly insulated from the outside world these days. Maybe Saturday's breakthrough convinced more fans -- Cowboys fans -- to show up to GIA Monday.
Also, this isn’t a great matchup for the Cowboys. Not in overall talent, and not in the paint, where KU’s Udoka Azubuike stands as one of college basketball’s elite talents. Azubuike averages 13.2 points and 9.6 rebounds. And get this, he’s shooting 78.1 percent from the floor.
Yor Anei played much better Saturday, but this is a different test. Anei will have to play smart and keep himself on the floor by not fouling as OSU’s main hope in limiting Azubuike’s impact.
He was good Saturday, going for 11 points, nine rebounds, four blocks and three assists in 21 minutes off the bench. Maybe Monday marks his return to the starting five, boosting a team in search of confidence and more.
“You finally see the light,” Anei said during the postgame radio interview. “You see the hard work paying off, and now we’ve just got to ride the momentum for the rest of conference play.”
“That’s the type of performance we need from (Anei) if we’re going to get this thing kick-started in a direction that we want to,” Cowboys coach Mike Boynton said.
A win over Kansas would be quite a kick.
And hey, Gallagher-Iba Arena has been a bit of a house of horrors for Bill Self’s teams. The old Cowboy, 5-7 at KU against his alma mater, has had superior squads take hard falls in GIA before, creating court-storming scenes.
2018: OSU 82, No. 6 Kansas 64
2016: OSU 86, No. 3 Kansas 67
2015: OSU 67, No. 8 Kansas 62
2014: OSU 72, No. 5 Kansas 65
2010: OSU 85, No. 1 Kansas 77
This would be among the hardest, considering OSU’s staggered status as the last-place team in the Big 12 at 0-6.
"I'm proud of our kids,” Boynton said. “Obviously, we've been through a tough couple of weeks here. But I'm proud of the way that they've stayed focused on each other, and they've stayed committed to our team, and trying to find a way to figure it out.
“(Saturday) we played really unselfish basketball and played really active basketball on the defensive end. I'm glad to get a win, move on, and get ready for the next one."
