Oklahoma State and Nevada will not meet the goal of getting three wins and a championship in a multi-team event.
Coming off a pair of strong showings following disappointing opening round results, Oklahoma State and Nevada seek a second win at the Charleston Classic in Sunday’s fifth-place game in South Carolina.
Picked 14th in the Big 12’s preseason poll, the Cowboys (4-1) are showing a potent offense so far as they are averaging 82.4 points and yet to score fewer than 78 points.
Oklahoma State opened this event with an 86-78 loss to Florida Atlantic when it shot 34 percent, but in Friday’s 80-74 win over Miami, the offense was improved as the Cowboys built a 16-point halftime lead and shot 47.4 percent for the game.
Bryce Thompson scored 17 and Marchelus Avery added 15 after Thompson had eight and Avery six against Florida Atlantic.
The Cowboys picked up the win despite struggling to finish it. The Cowboys held a 20-point lead with 14:35 remaining, a 17-point lead with 4:55 left and an 11-point edge with about two minutes left.
“We dropped a tough game on Thursday and we went back and watched film,” Thompson said in his postgame radio interview. “We watched film on Miami and 24 hours later we came back with a good win.”
Nevada (5-1) seeks its second win of the event after playing a pair of one possession games against Vanderbilt and Virginia Commonwealth. After taking a 73-71 loss in the opening round, the Wolfpack overcame an 11-point halftime deficit to earn a 64-61 win over VCU by hitting two late 3-pointers and continuing to shoot well from behind the arc (48 percent in the first six games).
Nick Davidson scored 13 of his 15 points after halftime when Nevada outscored VCU 41-27. Nevada also went 7-of-13 from 3-point range and got a tying 3 from Tre Coleman with 54 seconds left and the tiebreaking 3 from Kobe Sanders with five seconds left a night after missing a potential go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:40 left against Vanderbilt.
“That’s growth,” Nevada coach Steve Alford said. “That’s what we’re looking for early in the season. We’ve been able to play Vanderbilt out of the SEC. Now we play the team that’s supposed to win the A-10. Now we get Oklahoma State out of the Big 12. So, we’re getting to play the teams we want to play in this.”
–Field Level Media
