Oklahoma State Looking to Overcome Recent Struggles at Tulsa
Oklahoma State is looking to overcome its basketball struggles, and winning against an in-state rival is a good place to start.
The Cowboys finished last season 12-20 and fired Mike Boynton after seven years with the program. While his team performed poorly throughout last season, it still managed to get a win against Tulsa at Paycom Center in Oklahoma City.
This season, the Cowboys will travel to Tulsa for the first time since the 2018-19 season. In what was another rough season for the Cowboys, they lost to the Golden Hurricane.
On Wednesday, OSU will earn an opportunity to get a victory in the Reynolds Center for the first time since the 2016-17 campaign. That was also the Cowboys’ only victory in the Reynolds Center since it opened in 1998.
OSU lost its only other matchup there in the 2009-10 season. Before that, OSU hadn’t played a true road game against Tulsa since the mid-'90s. Overall, OSU has had a rather successful history against Tulsa.
Since 1908’s first matchup, the teams have played 115 times, with OSU taking 76 of those. Having won nearly two-thirds of the meetings, OSU’s struggles on the road have been notable. The Cowboys have an all-time record of 28-23 on the road. Having won seven of the past 10 overall matchups, the Cowboys have continued their momentum of all-time success.
Even in the midst of a generally successful run, OSU has failed to avoid Tulsa’s upset bids. As OSU looks to establish a new identity under a new coach and make a run in the new-look Big 12, beating Tulsa on the road would be a massive step in the right direction.
As unimportant as the game might seem, Wednesday’s matchup could be a momentum-building win for the rest of OSU’s nonconference play. And although the teams have been in drastically different situations for decades, it is always good to get a win over a rival.
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Ivan is a sports media student at Oklahoma State University. He has covered OSU athletics since 2022 and also covers the OKC Thunder for Inside The Thunder and Thunderous Intentions.