Bedlam hoops
What: OSU at OU When: 1 p.m. Saturday
Where: Lloyd Noble Center in Norman
TV: Fox Sports Oklahoma
STILLWATER — Lindy Waters was playing Fortnite with some high school friends Thursday when the Norman North product decided to remind them he was coming back to town Saturday, when he and the Oklahoma State basketball team will take on Oklahoma.
Per usual, the friends started to heckle Waters, giving him a hard time for choosing to leave Norman to become a Cowboy. On schedule, Waters returned the Bedlam trash talk.
“Every game I’ve played in,” he said, “haven’t lost.”
The Cowboys enter Saturday’s 1 p.m. Bedlam game having gone 4-1 in the rivalry in Waters’ first two seasons on the roster, the only loss coming while Waters was ill and unable to play during last year’s trip to Norman.
Although some of Waters’ friends told him they might wear orange Saturday, he knows the heckling won’t be limited to video games. The fans of the No. 23 Sooners should have plenty to say.
“Being an Oklahoma kid, I’m used to it,” Waters said. “It’s my third year here. It’s nothing new to me.”
That won’t be the case for several Cowboys. Waters and fellow juniors Cam McGriff and Thomas Dziagwa are the only players among the 13 at coach Mike Boynton’s disposal who have played in a Big 12 road game before.
“You can’t simulate the atmosphere or the energy or the angst,” Boynton said. “And I certainly wouldn’t even
try to simulate some of the things that they may hear.”
Outside of freshman walk-on Luke Major, none of OSU’s newcomers are from Oklahoma.
Last season, Boynton was unsure whether graduate transfer Kendall Smith, a California native, fully grasped the rivalry until playing in it, so he has tried to emphasize its importance this year.
“On the scoreboard, it’ll count as win or loss, but it means more, and we don’t shy away from that,” he said. “It means something to recruits. It means something to our fans and to our former players, and so it means something to us.
“If we win, it won’t count as two wins or 1 1/2 wins or anything like that, but there’ll be people walking around with a little bit more pride.”
Boynton, who made sure to point out he went undefeated against rival Clemson during his college career at South Carolina, called Bedlam an “underrated” rivalry nationally; three of the Cowboys’ four victories in the series the past two years were decided by four or fewer points.
“It’s our biggest rivalry,” Waters said. “We’ve got this circled on our schedule every single year. For as long as I’m here, for as long as the next generation’s here, it’ll always be circled. It’s our biggest rivalry, and that’s what we look forward to every year.”