Oklahoma State Basketball was in the Big 12 basement last season. Could the Cowboys be a sleeper for 2019-20?
There’s a certain buzz this season in Stillwater that this Oklahoma State Basketball team might be able to do something special. It’s not often in this day and age of college basketball that a team returns all five of its starters from the prior year, especially in a conference like the Big 12. The Cowboys have a squad full of veterans looking to make the tournament after missing out last season with a dismal twelve win season in Mike Boynton’s second season at the helm.
Welcome to the third edition of my sleeper watch series as we take a look at a team that actually has a lot of potential despite a lack of success in the past year. The Cowboys enter the season with five seniors on the roster and an influx of six freshmen. Oklahoma State was able to pull off a top 25 recruiting class this season, partly due to the number of players that signed, the class is headlined by top 100 player Marcus Watson.
There hasn’t been a lot of talk about the Cowboys this summer but with so many important returners and their new freshman, there’s a lot of reasons to be optimistic as to why they could make a return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.
I’ll take a deeper dive into some of those key returners, breakdown some of their key non-conference games, look at some of the challenges that they will face in the Big 12 and take a look at third-year head coach Mike Boynton.