{"id":512705,"date":"2026-03-01T23:03:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T23:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512705\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T23:03:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T23:03:08","slug":"cowboy-basketball-journeys-to-ucf-tuesday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/512705\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboy Basketball journeys to UCF Tuesday"},"content":{"rendered":"

OKLAHOMA STATE (17-12, 5-11) at UCF (20-8, 9-7)
\nTuesday, March 3, 2026 | 6 p.m. CT (7 p.m. ET)
\nOrlando, Fla. | Addition Financial Arena
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\nWatch: ESPN+
\nListen: Cowboy Radio Network (Dave Hunziker<\/a> & John Holcomb<\/a>)
\nStats: okstate.statbroadcast.com
\nSeries: UCF leads 4-2 (1-0 in Orlando)
\nLast: Jan. 6, 2026 in Stillwater (OSU, 87-76)
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\nOpening Tips:<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Oklahoma State Cowboys finish out two-game road swing Tuesday evening in Orlando against the UCF Knights.
\n\tThe regular season wraps up Saturday in Stillwater when the Houston Cougars come calling (11 a.m. CT, CBS).
\n\tOSU is coming off a 91-68 road loss at Cincinnati, which — paired with UCF’s 87-86 setback against Baylor — drops the Pokes into a tie for 13th in the standings with two games to go.
\n\tThe Cowboys are currently in line for the No. 14 seed in next week’s Big 12 Tournament. They can’t fall any lower in the pecking order — regardless of this week’s results — but could still climb as high as the No. 11 line with a couple of wins and some outside help.
\n\tAmong the teams within reach: Baylor (5-11), Colorado (6-10) and Arizona State (6-10) all own head-to-head tiebreakers over OSU (5-11).
\n\tThe Cowboys are looking for their first Big 12 sweep under second-year head coach Steve Lutz<\/a>, having previously beaten UCF in Stillwater back on Jan. 6. OSU’s 87-76 victory ended the 25th-ranked Knights’ 11-game win streak.
\n\tParsa Fallah<\/a> scored a team-high 24 points for the Cowboys in their first meeting with UCF but will be unavailable for the rematch after suffering a season-ending knee injury in last Tuesday’s overtime win over West Virginia.
\n\tThe 6-foot-10 Fallah was averaging 14.7 points and a team-best 6.0 rebounds and had emerged as a vocal leader for the Cowboys.
\n\tIn Fallah’s absence, 6-11 sophomore Andrija Vukovic<\/a> made his first Big 12 start at Cincinnati and tallied 10 points in 22 minutes, while 6-11 freshman Benjamin Ahmed<\/a> grabbed a career-high eight rebounds.
\n\tOSU is averaging 83.3 points this season (third in the Big 12), but that number dips to 69.6 in true road games. The Cowboys are just 1-7 in enemy territory.
\n\tOSU ranks 11th nationally in adjusted tempo, helped by a bench unit that is averaging a league-best 28.0 points per game.
\n\tMinus Fallah, the Cowboys still have scoring depth. Five others are averaging at least 9.3 points, led by Anthony Roy<\/a> (16.3 ppg). The senior ranks among the league leaders in threes (5th, 3.00) and three-point percentage (5th, .396).
\n\tKanye Clary<\/a> (9.4 ppg, 4.8 apg, 2.48 A:TO) has been at his best in Big 12 play, averaging 10.6 points and 5.1 assists against conference foes. <\/p>\n

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\nLast Time on Cowboy Basketball:
\nSaturday, Feb. 28 in Cincinnati | UC 91, OSU 68<\/p>\n


\n\tA hot shooting performance from one of the nation’s stingiest defensive teams led to a long afternoon for Oklahoma State.
\n\tDay Day Thomas scored 26 points and accounted for seven of the Cincinnati’s 14 three-pointers in a 91-68 win.
\n\tThe Bearcats hit 6-of-8 threes over the first 10 minutes of the game to go up 28-14.
\n\t7-foot-2 Moustapha Thiam scored 17 of his 24 points in the first half, punctuated by a dunk in the final seconds that sent UC to the locker room up 51-33. He finished the game with 15 rebounds.
\n\tThe Cowboys missed 11-of-14 to start the second half, as the margin grew to as many as 32 points down the stretch.
\n\tUC outscored OSU 24-7 on second-chances and finished with 24 assists against just eight turnovers.
\n\tVyctorius Miller<\/a> scored a team-high 15 for OSU, which played for the first time since losing center Parsa Fallah<\/a> to a knee injury. Benjamin Ahmed<\/a> grabbed eight rebounds and Daniel Guetta<\/a> had four assists. <\/p>\n

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\nOn This Date: March 3<\/p>\n


\n\t1949 \u2013 Henry Iba’s Aggies hoisted the Missouri Valley Conference pennant after a 60-36 win over the visiting Wheatshockers of Wichita. Three Valley schools would finish among the top-10 in the final AP Poll with No. 2 OSU (an eventual Final Four team) joined by No. 3 Saint Louis and No. 7 Bradley.
\n\t1962 \u2013 Moe Iba made a 45-footer at the buzzer to give OSU a 65-64 win over Nebraska. The Huskers led 64-63 prior to a tie-up between OSU’s Eddie Bunch and Nebraska’s Tom Russell. Bunch won a jump ball, and a dribbling Iba pulled up near mid-court and swished a high arcing shot as the gun sounded.
\n\t2018 \u2013 The Cowboys finished out a two-game regular season sweep of Kansas (the first in 17 years), routing sixth-ranked Jayhawks 82-64 in Stillwater. Kendall Smith led the way with a career-high 25 points. <\/p>\n

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\nCincinnati Leftovers:<\/p>\n


\n\tSaturday’s game was the 100th of senior forward Christian Coleman<\/a>‘s NCAA career. He’s 43 points shy of 1,000.
\n\tFreshman point guard Daniel Guetta<\/a> saw his first extended action since Dec. 22 and tallied a career-high four assists in 12 minutes.
\n\tFreshman forward Benjamin Ahmed<\/a>‘s eight rebounds and 19 minutes were also new personal-bests.
\n\tSophomore Andrija Vukovic<\/a> made his first Big 12 start in place of Parsa Fallah<\/a> and finished with 10 points. This came on the heels of a career-high 12 points against WVU.
\n\tFor the fifth time this season, OSU’s minutes leader came from off the bench. Jaylen Curry<\/a> clocked 25:17 and scored 11 of the team’s 38 bench points.
\n\tCurry made just 1-of-8 field goals but sank all nine of his foul shots to raise his season percentage to an even .800.
\n\tVyctorius Miller<\/a> led the scoring for the first time since Nov. 19. His 15 points were a Big 12 season-best.
\n\tAnthony Roy<\/a> drained a first-half three-pointer to move into a tie for 14th on OSU’s single-season chart (78) alongside Randy Rutherford (1993-94).
\n\tRoy became just the sixth Cowboy to make 50 threes in a Big 12 season joining John Lucas (2004-05), Keiton Page<\/a> (2011-12), Phil Forte (2013-14 & 2016-17) and Thomas Dziagwa (2018-19).
\n\tOSU used its 17th unique starting-five in 29 games this season. <\/p>\n

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\nAlso Trending:<\/p>\n


\n\tOSU has topped the 90-point mark 11 times — one shy of the program record set in 2016-17.
\n\tThe Cowboys have scored at least 81 points in all 17 victories but are 0-11 when falling short.
\n\tOSU is 14-1 this season when tied or leading at halftime (29-3 overall under Lutz). The lone loss came at TCU on Jan. 20.
\n\tThe Cowboys are 13-1 when out-rebounding their opponent (25-6 Lutz era). The lone loss came Feb. 21 at Colorado.
\n\tPoint guards Kanye Clary<\/a> and Jaylen Curry<\/a> have combined for double-digit assists in nine different games this season. <\/p>\n

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\nThe Series:<\/p>\n


\n\tUCF is one of three Big 12 opponents that the Cowboys will see twice during the 2025-26 regular season (Iowa State and TCU are the others).
\n\tUCF leads the all-time series 4-2, but OSU is 2-1 against the Knights under head coach Steve Lutz<\/a>.
\n\tAll six games between the schools have taken place over the past four seasons, beginning with a chance encounter in the semifinals of the 2022 Baha Mar Bahamas Championship and continuing with UCF’s 2023 move to the Big 12.
\n\tOSU and UCF split two games last season with each side protecting its home floor. Bryce Thompson<\/a> scored a career-high 25 points in a 104-95 Cowboy win in Stillwater on Feb. 19, 2025. Two weeks later in Orlando, UCF rode a 36-point effort from senior Darius Johnson to an 83-70 win.
\n\tThe Knights defeated the Cowboys twice over the last two weeks of the 2023-24 season — the first in Stillwater and the latter in the first round of the Big 12 tournament in Kansas City.
\n\tOSU is 2-1 against UCF in Stillwater.
\n\tCowboy teams are 5-5 all-time in the Orlando area (0-1 against UCF) after three separate appearances in the ESPN Events Invitational (previously known as the Old Spice Classic and the Advocare Invitational) in 2008, 2014 and 2018. <\/p>\n

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\nScouting the Knights:<\/p>\n


\n\tUCF has been one of the Big 12’s biggest surprises. After losing every scholarship player off last year’s 20-17 team that made the finals of the inaugural Crown Basketball Classic, the Knights were picked 14th out of 16 in this year’s Big 12 preseason poll. Instead, 10th year head coach Johnny Dawkins has his new-look team in position for an NCAA at-large berth with a second straight 20-win season and a 9-7 start to Big 12 play that includes home wins over Kansas and Texas Tech and road victory at BYU last week. The Knights are 13-4 inside Addition Financial Arena this season.
\n\tA pair of Milwaukee transfers have played prominent roles. 6-2 senior Themus Fulks (14.1 ppg) ranks among the top-10 nationally in assists (7.0) while 6-8 junior Jamichael Stillwell (11.8 ppg) is averaging a team-best 7.8 boards (3.2 of them on the offensive glass).
\n\t6-5 senior Riley Kugel \u2013 a Mississippi State transfer who started his career at Florida State — is the team’s top scorer at 14.5 per game.
\n\t6-9 junior Jordan Burks \u2013 a former Kentucky Wildcat who played last year at Georgetown \u2013 averages 13.4 points and has hit a team-best 54 threes on 39.4% accuracy.
\n\tUCF ranks 14th nationally in three-point percentage (.385), while knocking down 8.3 per game.
\n\tDawkins, the 1986 NCAA player of the year at Duke, played 10 seasons in the NBA before moving on to a successful coaching career. He won a pair of NIT championships during an eight-year run at Stanford (2008-16) and has guided the Knights to five postseason appearances, highlighted by a first-round win in the 2019 NCAA Tournament. <\/p>\n

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\nMatchup Mashup:<\/p>\n


\n\tThree former Knights have finished their respective careers at OSU, most recently Marchelus “Chi Chi” Avery who averaged 11.4 points for the 2024-25 Cowboys. Twin brothers Joey and Stephen Graham started their collegiate careers at UCF (2000-02) before helping OSU to back-to-back Big 12 tournament titles and 2004 Final Four appearance.
\n\tOn the flip side, former Cowboy Arturo Dean<\/a>, the 2025 Big 12 steals leader, is redshirting this season for UCF. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\nA Cowboy win would…<\/p>\n


\n\tPush their record to 18-12, exceeding their final 2024-25 win total (17-18).
\n\tGive them their first Big 12 sweep under Lutz.
\n\tBe their third in four Lutz era meetings with UCF
\n\tNarrow the Knight’s all-time series lead to 4-3.
\n\tBe their first at Addition Financial Arena (1-1).
\n\tBe their second true road win this season (2-7).
\n\tMake them 5-5 all-time vs. Dawkins. <\/p>\n

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\nA Cowboy loss would…<\/p>\n


\n\tDrop them to 17-13 (5-12 Big 12).
\n\tSink them to 1-8 on the road this season.
\n\tMake them 2-5 all-time against UCF (0-2 in Orlando).
\n\t(Combined with a Baylor win at Houston on Wednesday) lock them into the No. 14 seed in the Big 12 Tournament.
\n\t(Combined with a Baylor loss at Houston Wednesday) lock them into either the No. 13 or No. 14 seed in KC. <\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\nUp Next: Houston
\nSaturday, 11 a.m. CT (CBS)<\/p>\n


\n\tThe Cowboys wrap up the regular season with a national network TV game against Houston in Gallagher-Iba Arena.
\n\tOSU will honor its seniors prior to the game.
\n\tThe Cougars have won all three Big 12 era matchups between the schools, including a two-game sweep of last year’s home-and-home — 60-47 in Stillwater and 72-63 in Houston.
\n\tUH (24-5, 12-4 heading into Wednesday’s home finale against Baylor) will need to make up two games this week on first-place Arizona in order to win a third consecutive Big 12 regular season title but is in prime position for another high NCAA Tournament seed after advancing to last year’s national title game.
\n\tThe Cougars are No. 7 in the NCAA NET and are allowing the second-fewest points nationally (62.3) while holding foes to a paltry 40.2% from the field.
\n\tUH is averaging a nation-low 8.3 turnover per game and ranks among the NCAA leaders in turnover margin (3rd, +5.6) and assist-to-turnover ratio (7th, 1.82).
\n\tFreshman guard Kingston Flemings is fifth in KenPom’s national player of the year table, averaging 16.4 points, 5.4 assists and 1.6 steals while posting a 2.75 A:TO ratio. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OKLAHOMA STATE (17-12, 5-11) at UCF (20-8, 9-7) Tuesday, March 3, 2026 | 6 p.m. CT (7 p.m.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":512706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-512705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=512705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/512705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/512706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}