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Familiarity may help Oklahoma State against No. 4 Oklahoma (Jan 20, 2018)
If there is any player in college basketball that knows the ins and outs of Oklahoma star Trae Young's game, it is Lindy Waters III.
Waters, an Oklahoma State sophomore guard, has been on the same team as Young for the most part but has spent plenty of time against Young in practice dating back to when the duo from Norman, Okla., first started playing together in third grade.
"It just goes so far back," Waters said in the lead-up to Saturday's Bedlam game in Stillwater, Okla. "We've been close, played together, we know each other, we know our style of play. It's just going to be fun."
Waters had been looking forward to the first meeting between the two on Jan. 3, but he suffered a concussion in the days before the game and had to stay home. He watched the game on television.
What he saw was Young coming a rebound short of a triple-double -- 27 points, 10 assists and nine rebounds -- in a 109-89 Sooners win.
Waters figures to be ready to go this time around.
Young still leads the country in both scoring (29.5 points per game) and assists (9.8) but is coming off his worst game of his freshman season -- perhaps his only game that could be described as poor.
In Tuesday's 87-69 loss at Kansas State, Young had 20 points with six assists but was just 2 of 10 from behind the 3-point line and turned the ball over a Big 12-record 12 times.
"I could have made simpler passes," Young said. "And even the passes that were tipped, they were wide-open guys. I just didn't ball-fake and throw it to them. I just didn't make the reads that I usually make and that's just something I've got to get better at and something that I'm capable of doing. I just didn't do it that night. It's a learning experience."
Oklahoma State is coming off a similarly disappointing loss.
The Cowboys fell 76-60 at Baylor on Monday and afterward were forced to take a bus from Waco, Texas, to Stillwater -- a nearly six-hour trip -- because of inclement weather that made flying back home impossible.
First-year Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said the team made the most of the experience.
"I think it's good for us," Boynton said. "I think, sometimes, we get at this level a little spoiled by the accommodations and the access, the luxuries and all that stuff, and sometimes it's good to get back to reality that probably 75 percent of college athletes really live."
Boynton said he hopes the experience brought his team together.
But that doesn't figure to matter much in a nearly sold-out Gallagher-Iba Arena as Oklahoma tries for its fourth sweep of the Bedlam series in the past five seasons. Oklahoma State swept the Sooners last year.
"You look forward to going and playing against tough crowds," Young said. "Gallagher-Iba is one of the toughest places to play in college basketball so I know it's going to be rowdy on Saturday and I'm looking forward to it. I'm looking forward to the challenge."
