Cunningham's Absence Showed up Glaringly in Second Half of Baylor Game

STILLWATER – News circulated fast prior to the Baylor game of Cade Cunningham’s absence from the starting lineup. Warmups ahead of the game was the first time Cunningham had been cleared to return to physical activities, especially on the court activities, in more than a week. The program shut down all activities following a positive test within the program last week ahead of the first installment of Bedlam.

“Today was the first day that [Cade Cunningham] was cleared for physical activity, but he couldn’t play a game having not practiced,” Boynton said. “He needed to be here, but he couldn’t play. I wasn’t going to play him; I’m not going to make him dress and then be tempted to put him in when [Baylor’s] making a run, I’m not doing that. The thought is today’s a good opportunity for him to maybe get some reps and shoot some balls, which he has not done in a week-plus, and get his heart going a little bit and see how he feels and tomorrow see if he can do a little bit more. Then, if he can do a little bit more, then we’ll continue to evaluate him as we go along.”

During the broadcast on CBS, it was announced Cunningham was sitting out due to COVID-19 precautions, which led to a lot of people questioning why he was allowed to go through warmups and sit courtside during the game.

“There’s a time period here in which you aren’t allowed to be around,” head coach Mike Boynton said. “Then, at some point that time does pass. He doesn’t have to stay away from our team forever, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that when he’s around that he’s able to play or that he’s been in our preparation to help us.

“We’re kinda in the middle ground. We’re working our way back. We’re just going to continue to follow the guidance our medical team has put for us.”

The Cowboys played extremely well in the first 25-26 minutes of the game against No. 2 Baylor. In fact, they led a decent portion of the first half of the game and went into halftime with a 36-32 lead after jumping out to a nine-point lead just a few minutes before that. However, exhaustion set in rather quickly in the second half as the coach staff had just eight players at their disposal.

Baylor would end up going on a 19-1 run in the second half that really sealed the deal for the Bears. Had the Cowboys been as close to full strenght, it’s possible we could’ve seen another second-half Cowboy comeback as we saw against Kansas.

“I’ll stop short of saying we can do it without [Cade Cunningham and Rondel Walker], we lost,” said coach Boynton. “I’m also of the mind of I’m an optimistic person by nature anyway and I know there’s probably a lot of people out there questioning why we didn’t get the job done. [Baylor’s] really good; we lost to a really good basketball team, but like I said before, we went toe-to-toe with them and led for 25-26 minutes of this game. If we can continue to get performances like we did today from [Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe] and Kalib [Boone], when we get everybody back, I think this team’s got a chance to be competitive and beat anybody we play in the country.”

It was easily one of, if not the best game of Kalib Boone’s short career in Stillwater. He finished with a career-high 21-points and a season-high seven rebounds in a career-high 28-minutes of action. As for Moncrieffe, he posted as career-second best 13-points and a career-high 10 rebounds for a double-double against the No. 2 team in the country.

As Boynton mentioned, the Cowboys have to continue to get performances like that out of those two guys, as well as everyone else if they’re going to have success in games where Cunningham is either out or limited in some capacity. That’s looking like it’s going to be the case against Iowa State on Monday night.

Sunday morning, the program sent out the game notes for the Iowa State game and Cade Cunningham isn’t one of the projected starters. Boynton said after the Baylor game it would possibly be a 50/50 chance Cunningham suits up and plays against the Cyclones on the road.

“I would say it’s 50-50 at best [if he plays Monday against Iowa State], but I don’t know,” Boynton said. “We [COVID] test tomorrow, so who knows; we got to know the game’s going to happen first.”

The good news about possibly not having Cunningham, and it’s yet to be seen the extent of the injury that kept Walker on the sidelines, is Iowa State has yet to win a conference game this season and have only won two games on the season.

The Cowboys should be able to have success without both Cunningham and Walker, but will desperately need the pair back for the following game against red-hot Arkansas in the Big 12-SEC Challenge taking place in Stillwater on Jan. 30.