Oklahoma State Hoops Looking to Figure Out Shooters and Find Early Success in 2024-25

KANSAS CITY, KS – It’s wild to think the Steve Lutz era of Cowboy basketball starts in less than two weeks. Seems like just yesterday we were writing about the coaching search and on November 4th, Doug Gottlieb is bringing his Green Bay team into Gallagher-Iba Arena. 

There were certainly some wild up and down times during the Mike Boynton era, what with the FBI investigation, holding walk-on tryouts for practice squad members, signing the No. 1 overall prospect in Cade Cunningham and winning an NCAA tournament game, to missing out on the tournament in the following seasons due to NCAA ban and poor performance.

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However, I’m not sure I could guess with any more accuracy how this team is going to pan out than I could anyone of Boynton’s teams. Lutz and Co. brought 10 new players in from the transfer portal to go with the three returners of Bryce Thompson, Jamyron Keller and Connor Dow.

Pokes Report correspondent Jordan Woodruff of Triple Play Sports Radio was in Kansas City for Big 12 Basketball Media Day on Wednesday and had the opportunity to talk with Lutz on his first few months of the fall leading into the season.

There’s a lot of questions surrounding this team, but at least in my opinion, the most important question is who’s going to be the main shooter on this team with the game on the line. Will it be one of the newcomers like Brandon Newman, Arturo Dean or Khalil Brantley, or a returner like Thompson, Keller or Dow? Well, they’re not quite sure yet.

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“That’s still a work in progress, to be very honest,” Lutz said of who’s going to be primary shooters on the team. “I don’t know at the end of the day, if on Saturday afternoon in our charity game [against SMU], if the game’s on the line, I’m not sure I could tell you today who we’re going to. I think that’s going to evolve throughout the year. I think that’s going to have some ebbs and flows to it as well.”

However, one thing is for certain and that’s Lutz has had success in each of his first two head coaching jobs. Now, success this season I believe has to be relative. No, Texas A&M CC and Western Kentucky aren’t in the Big 12, but they play in one-bid leagues and he recruited some talent to those programs and had immediate success.

Will that happen in Stillwater? There’s certainly some talent on the roster but the Big 12 is an absolute gauntlet with five Big 12 teams in the AP preseason top 10 in Kansas, Houston, Iowa State, Baylor and Arizona.

Will the Cowboys make the NCAA tournament? Odds would say no being picked preseason 14th in the Big 12. But can the Pokes get close to .500 on the season with a roster put together out of the transfer portal with not a lot of NIL money or time for the coaching staff to build relationships before signing? Absolutely. Relative.

“Obviously, number one is we’ve recruited the right people to the room at each and every location,” Lutz said of his early career success. “I think that we’ve got a team that wants to win, they’re about the right things thus far. They’ve put a good job of putting the team first. So, now it’s just going to come down to a matter of when you get into the league, when you get into games, can you carry that over to the court? Can you make the extra pass, can you get the extra rebound, can you dive on the floor when there’s a loose ball. Can you do those things consistently and can you do them at a higher level than your opponent. Obviously, now you’re into a tougher thing because you’re into the Big 12, the best league. So, you’ve got to do it at the highest level every single possession. That’s always your task and it’s hard to do.”

As I wrote about above, the Cowboys will have their first shot at putting one in the win column as they play host to Green Bay on Nov. 4. Tipoff is scheduled for 8 p.m. and will be streamed on ESPN+.