STILLWATER – Oklahoma State Cowboy basketball is a week into summer workouts, with all but three spots filled. Going through the roster, you can expect head coach Steve Lutz and Co. to fill at least two of those spots with big men. On Thursday, Lutz and Co. host their first drills session and workout as a full team, with the past week being small groups and individual work outs.
Wednesday was the final day of the Steve Lutz youth basketball camp at Oklahoma State. On Tuesday, Lutz was at the NBPA Top 100 Camp, and Thursday marks the start of the team camp portion of Lutz’s basketball camp.
So, it makes it that much more impressive, what with trying to fill roster spots, hosting a youth basketball camp, then a high school team camp, attending a recruiting event and holding player workouts, that Lutz found 20 minutes to meet with the media on Wednesday afternoon.
He discussed a number of topics, including the fans’ excitement level in the program, season ticket interest, piecing together a roster and a coaching staff almost from scratch, as well how he expects to finish building out the roster and what he’s seen from his team so far.
“Obviously, maybe on [guy] shoots a little better than you expected and maybe one shoots a little worse than you expected,” Lutz said of if he’s learned anything new about his players since the recruiting process. “Today’s Wednesday, so we practiced and worked out seven times. Tomorrow will be the first time that we work out as a group, meaning the entire team. Right now, it’s been a lot of individual workouts and bigs and guards and those things. You learn more and more each day, right? It’s just the way it is because the portal and the transfer process happens so quickly these days, you probably don’t know everything that you need to. That’s what you have eight weeks in the summer for, to develop relationships, but also to figure out what is this young man good at. Well, if he’s great at that, then let’s make sure we develop our offense so that we can utilize those strengths.”
But other than trying to figure out what his players are all about, one thing Lutz and Co. will have ample time over the next few months will be how to utilize this team and put a productive product on the floor.
“Well, the roster is still in flux,” said Lutz. “We have three open scholarships at this point, and we plan to fill those. We’re in talks with several young men; we’ve had visits once the dead period opened back up, and we’ll continue to do that here moving forward. It’s good to have 10 guys here, but we want to have 13.”
One of the players OSU is in on, and one who was recently on campus, is 2025 forward, Sammie Yeanay.
Lutz also mentioned they’ve added a solid group of walk-ons over the past few weeks, and I don’t need to tell you have valuable a good walk-on can be for Cowboy basketball.
“We’ve been fortunate that we’ve added some good walk-ons this summer. I think that provides depth in practice and hopefully a couple of those can transition into a game.”
10 new players on the roster means that only three players returned from last year’s team: Bryce Thompson, Jamyron Keller and Connor Dow. I asked Lutz if having returning veterans have helped the newcomers navigate a new school.
“It’s been great; Bryce [Thompson], Connor [Dow], Jamyron [Keller], all three of those guys have helped the new guys adapt. ‘Hey, Walmart’s here on this side of town,’ all of those things matter, but they also help [the new guys] understand and navigate training table. They’ve been fantastic and have been good leaders thus far.”
