The Cowboys tipped off in Youngstown Ohio in the first round of NIT play against the Youngstown State Penguins Wednesday and went on to win the game 69-64.

The Penguins led for most of the game.  At half time  the Pokes were behind by three, but with 1:33 left in the second half, OSU led by eight and won the game by five.

Caleb Asberry, Bryce Thompson, John-Michael Wright, Moussa Cisse and Tyreek Smith  started the game for the Cowboys.  Three Pokes recorded double-doubles. Smith had his first double-double with 11 rebounds and led the scoring isth 13 points.   Cisse led the rebounding with 13 and scored 11 points as well as blocking two shots.  While Quion Williams also achieved his first double-double game with both 11 rebounds and 11 points.

This win improved the Cowboys to 19-15 for the season. Although it was difficult to not make the NCAA tournament, coach Mike Boynton was proud of the way his team played, saying, “So the opportunity to play in the postseason is a different deal. There’s still a lot of reasons for our guys to not fight the way they fought. They had a great crowd, they got off to a good start, and you know, there’s still that lingering effect of, a) NIT on the road, as the No. 1 team in the event, I mean there was a lot of reasons not to  play the way they played. And I’m just thankful that they showed the character they did, and found a way to defend, which is the hardest thing in basketball to do when you don’t want to, because it requires selflessness, it requires a commitment to your teammates, it requires a commitment to your coaches. And so to see us defend the way we did and play with the energy that we did to close the game, particularly in the second half throughout was pretty gratifying. And certainly, again, I never want to make it seem like we’re excited to go to the NIT, but we’re in the NIT and we’re gonna try to play in a way that gives us the best chance to win.”

On Sunday, OSU beat the Eastern Washington Eagles in Stillwater in the second round of the NIT tournament, 71-60, with OSU shooting about 48 percent from the field.

Once again Caleb Asberry, Bryce Thompson, John-Michael Wright, Moussa Cisse and Tyreek Smith  started the game for the Cowboys.  The high scorer for OSU was Thompson with 22 points, 18 points from 3-point range.  He was followed by Smith and Wright with 11 points each.

The Eagles led for most of the first half until the Cowboys took the lead with 5:35 left in the half and never relinquished the lead. OSU led at the half by nine and gained another two points in the lead to finish the game.

With Kalib Boone still recovering from an infection and Moussa Cisse coming back from his injury, OSU put together a strong game. Mike Boynton said, “Really happy to be still playing and have an opportunity to compete with these guys. Obviously, basketball season is a long season to get to this point where not only are you still playing, but you’re playing for something meaningful and playing for each other is pretty neat. So, I was really proud of our effort this afternoon, but I was even more proud of our fans effort. It wasn’t by far the best or biggest crowd we’ve had, but I thought their engagement throughout was really, really good. So, I’m thankful for that and obviously we’ll have another opportunity here — we don’t know when yet — but to play at home and I’m hopeful that we can replicate that.”