Getty Isaac Likekele #13 of the Oklahoma State Cowboys. (Photo by Jamie Squire/Getty Images)
The Oklahoma State Cowboys will take on the Rogers State Hillcats Friday in their first exhibition game of the year at Stillwater Oklahoma.
The game (8 p.m. ET/7 p.m. CT start time) won’t be on regular TV anywhere, but you can watch OSU vs Rogers State live right here on ESPN+, the digital streaming service from ESPN that has exclusive coverage of several Oklahoma State and Big 12 basketball games this season, tons of other college basketball and live sports every week, all the 30-for-30 documentaries and additional original content (both video and written) all for $4.99 per month.
You can sign up for ESPN+ right here, and you can then watch Oklahoma State vs Rogers State live on your computer via ESPN.com, or on your phone (Android and iPhone compatible), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, or other streaming device via the ESPN app.
Oklahoma State vs Rogers State Preview
In a disturbing turn of events, the Cowboys saw freshman Marcus Watson charged with rape this week, and he has since been suspended indefinitely. OSU coach Mike Boynton spoke recently about what this could mean for his team:
“Well, there’s no rotation yet,” said Boynton. “We haven’t played, so the guys who performed the best in practice, will have an opportunity. As it relates to [Marcus Watson], he’s obviously not a part of the conversation at this point.”
The Cowboys will take on a young Rogers State team, and Boynton is looking forward to many of his young players playing in their first game: “I can’t really emphasize how important it is for five or six of them where it’ll be the first time that they play in this building with people in it and we’re keeping score and time and all that stuff. Just that experience alone will be valuable as we move forward to next week,” he said.
Boynton thinks this exhibition game against Rogers State will be of utmost importance to his freshmen:
“In a lot of ways, it doesn’t seem like a big game. It’s a big game for (the freshmen). It’ll be the first time that people are going to pay money to come watch them play. Their family will come, and they’ll put on that college basketball uniform that they’ve all probably spent some times in their minds thinking about how it would look and how it would feel. It’ll be great for them to go out there and kick the ball out of bounds a couple times, maybe throw one off the backboard, get the jitters out before it really counts next week.”
The Cowboys will be led by sophomore guard Isaac Likekele, who spent his summer playing with team USA Basketball at the FIBA U19 World Cup. Boynton doesn’t think Likekele’s time away this summer will hurt him this fall: “Ice’s summer was a little bit different because of the USA basketball experience. We actually shut him down for about six or eight weeks. He really had to get himself going again in the fall. He’s done a really good job. The thing he’s done the most is really, really engage himself in the film room, before and after practice stuff.”
Boynton also noted that he doesn’t expect Rogers State to be a pushover: “Coach (Justin) Barkley does a tremendous job. They’ve got a couple division-I transfers that’ll come in here and be excited about playing in a building like this again and have an opportunity to compete against a Big 12 team. So, our guys need to prepare the right way for the next few days to play against a team that’s going to come in here and try to win.”
OSU will see their regular season kick off next week against Oral Roberts.