Anderson and Boone Show Massive Growth During 2020-21 Season

STILLWATER – The 2020-21 season for Oklahoma State basketball was one of the more exciting seasons we’ve seen in a while. Featuring the No. 1 overall pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, Cade Cunningham, the Cowboys beat nine top-25 teams, five of which were ranked in the top-10, including eventual national champs Baylor.

That stretch included a season sweep of Texas Tech and OU and an impressive run all the way to Big 12 title game. The Pokes also knocked off a very talented Arkansas team which played Baylor within nine points of an Elite Eight game.

Two key guys to the season were sophomores Avery Anderson III and Kalib Boone. Cowboy basketball tweeted out two graphics on Monday detailing the growth of those two guys from their freshman to sophomore seasons.

Let’s start with Avery.

Avery averaged 12.2 points a game this season on 47.5% shooting from the field. That’s a jump up from just 4.2 points on 36.4% shooting as a freshman. He also saw a rather healthy jump up in the last six games of the season as he 19.2 points a game on 52.6% shooting from the field.

He declared for the NBA Draft a few weeks back but did so without and agent and the general consensus is he’ll return for his junior season after getting a thorough evaluation from the NBA.

We saw the potential and explosiveness he had as a freshman, but actually got to see it in action this past season. Should he return, Avery will easily be one of the best players in the Big 12.

As for Kalib, not only did he have a solid sophomore season, but he broke the school’s single-season field goal percentage record with a clip of 64.2% shooting. He also doubled his scoring averaged from his freshman season at 9.4 points per game and added nearly two and a half rebounds per game up to 5.4 from 3.0.

He also led the Big 12 in blocked shots with 49 this past season, 1.6 per game. Should we continue to see physical growth out of Kalib, the 2021-22 season very easily could be one of the best we’ve seen from an OSU big in a while.