Oklahoma State will aim to snap a two-game losing streak Monday night when it hosts New Orleans in Stillwater, Okla.
The Cowboys (1-3) have dropped back-to-back games, both coming by a 66-64 score after last-second shot attempts were off the mark. They lost to both St. Bonaventure and Notre Dame last week at the Legends Classic in New York.
Javon Small had career highs of 29 points and 10 rebounds in the loss to Notre Dame.
Head coach Mike Boynton told The Oklahoman after the game the key for his team moving forward is to avoid playing from behind.
“The challenge is you can’t dig yourself a hole consistently the way we had done throughout this game early and then in the second half after we came back,” Boynton said. “Because it takes a lot of energy to come back. It makes it harder to finish.”
Small is averaging a team-best 16 points per game.
Oklahoma State is also getting great production out of Bryce Thompson, who is averaging 14.3 points per outing but is questionable for Monday after leaving last Thursday’s game against St. Bonaventure with a knee injury.
New Orleans (2-1) comes in off a 73-70 loss to Loyola Chicago on Saturday and will play its second of five consecutive games away from home.
Like the Cowboys, the Privateers found themselves trying to battle back for a win in their last game. They trailed 41-31 at the half but lost despite 31 points from Jordan Johnson, who has scored 30 or more three times in his career.
Johnson leads the Privateers at 23.3 points per outing but six others are averaging seven or more points per game.
“We’re actually very deep from top to bottom,” forward Omarion Henry told the school’s website after its season-opening win. “We can play multiple different starting lineups, we can play multiple different weapons at the same time, and it’s just fun. Especially when you are that deep, you can do so much on the floor. It’s so hard to contain that many players at the same time.”
–Field Level Media