Cowboy Basketball's Starting to Hit at the Right Time

Oklahoma State is playing its best basketball of the season in mid-February as they've won two-straight and three out of four games.

STILLWATER -- It's something that Cowboy fans have waited for since the end of November: winning. Mike Boynton and Co. finally have the team clicking on all cylinders as they've won two-straight, including the upset of No. 24 Texas Tech this past weekend, and three out of the last four Big 12 games.

Oklahoma State had struggled to find any rhythm for the longest time after Likekele's sickness, and even after Likekele came back. But as Mike Boynton said during the last media availability, Likekele is back to full health and it shows.

In the past four games, Likekele has scored 46 points, hauled in 30 rebounds and dished out 27 assists.

That's on top of the solid performances the Pokes have been getting out of senior Jonathan Laurent. Laurent posted several Oklahoma State career-highs against Tech on Saturday including 16 points, 36 minutes, nine made field goals, seven made free throws and seven rebounds.

Since the TCU game, Laurent has posted 45 points, 17 rebounds and has gone 14 of 18 from the free throw line.

But it's evident that Oklahoma State's recent successes have come from a change in offensive philosophy. Instead of settling for three after three, the Pokes are taking the ball inside.

“Coach (Mike Boynton) always talks to us about finding an identity,” Laurent said. “I feel like in the beginning of the year we started off as more of a 3-point shooting team, but these past seven or eight games we’ve actually found our identity and that’s in the paint.”

In the past four games, Oklahoma State has scored 118 points in the paint compared to just 51 points beyond the 3-point line.

It's going to be interesting to see what the Cowboys do on Tuesday night against West Virginia, a team that's dominant down low in the paint. The Mountaineers are getting 11.6 points and 9.2 rebounds out of freshman forward Oscar Tshiebew.

While I'm not predicting that Oklahoma State is going to pull off the upset of one of the best teams in the country, but I'm certainly giving the Cowboys more than the 9.9 percent chance that ESPN's Basketball Power Index is giving them.