Cowboys release complete 2023-24 basketball schedules

STILLWATER — Both the Oklahoma State men’s and women’s 2023-24 complete basketball schedule was released Tuesday morning The Cowboys will appear 19 times at Gallagher-Iba Arena, beginning with a Nov. 1 exhibition game against Oklahoma Baptist. The season officially opens Nov. 6 against Abilene Christian.

All 31 regular season contests will air on the ESPN Family of Networks, which includes ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPN+.

The Cowboys could play as many as 14 games against 2023 NCAA tournament teams and up to 18 against foes that finished among the top-100 in last year’s NCAA NET Rankings. The Big 12 has graded out as KenPom’s highest-rated conference in eight of the last 10 seasons.

Non-conference highlights include a visit from consensus preseason top-10 Creighton, a neutral court clash with Tulsa at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center and a trip to Brooklyn, N.Y., for the Legends Classic.

10 of OSU’s 18 league games fall on Saturdays, including the Jan. 6 opener against Baylor, the Mar. 9 finale at Brigham Young University and both Bedlam contests.

OSU and Oklahoma meet Feb. 10 in Norman and Feb. 24 in Stillwater in what will be the final chapter of their Big 12 rivalry. The in-state foes have played at least two times in every season since 1928. The Cowboys swept all three 2022-23 match-ups, capped by a win the first round of the conference tournament.

The rest of the Big 12 home line-up features Kansas (Jan. 16), Texas Christian University (Jan. 23), West Virginia (Jan. 27), Kansas State (Feb. 3) and conference newcomers BYU (Feb. 17) and Central Florida (Feb. 28). Senior Night is Mar. 5 against Texas Tech.

A super-sized Big 12 Championship runs Mar. 12-16 in Kansas City, Mo. First-round play-in games feature the 11 through 14 seeds. Winners square off the following day against the fifth through eighth seeds for a spot in Thursday’s quarterfinals.

The non-conference schedule has a mixture of new and old foes.

The Nov. 6 season opener against Abilene Christian marks the first meeting between the schools since 1969.

Sam Houston invades GIA for the second straight year Nov. 10. The Bearkats (26-9, No. 69 in the NCAA NET) made the jump to Conference USA over the summer after winning the 2023 WAC regular season title. OSU won last year’s matchup at GIA behind 18 points from Bryce Thompson.

A mid-November appearance in the Legends Classic will mark OSU’s fourth separate visit to the Barclays Center under Brooklyn native Mike Boynton Jr. The Cowboys open Nov. 16 against St. Bonaventure and will draw either Auburn or Notre Dame the following day.

Thanksgiving Week brings home contests against New Orleans (Nov. 20) and Houston Christian (Nov. 24).

Creighton is in town Nov. 30 as part of the ongoing Big East-Big 12 Battle series. The Bluejays came up a point shy of the Final Four last spring, falling to San Diego State in the Midwest Regional Final.

OSU tips off December with its only true road game of the non-conference slate against a Southern Illinois team that won 24 games last year — one of them at GIA.

The 115th all-time meeting between OSU and Tulsa — scheduled for Dec. 10 — will be their first at Oklahoma City’s Paycom Center. The Cowboys defeated the Golden Hurricane 82-56 in Stillwater last season.

OSU bookends the holiday break with home games against Oral Roberts (Dec. 17), Wofford (Dec. 20), South Carolina State (Dec. 31) and Chicago State (Jan. 3). ORU is coming off a 30-win season and an undefeated run through the Summit League. Wofford and SCSU are both firsttime foes.

After a pair of home games against Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and New Orleans on Nov. 6 and Nov. 8, respectively, the Cowgirls will travel to Boulder, Colo., to face the Colorado Buffaloes on Nov. 12.

A pair of games against Big Ten foes will await the Cowgirls at the Baha Mar Hoops Pink Flamingo Championship in Nassau. OSU will face Penn State on Nov. 20 before taking on Ohio State two days later in The Bahamas.

OSU will return home to begin a fourgame homestand on Nov. 26 when Missouri State comes to town. The Cowgirls will host Wyoming on Dec. 3, Texas State on Dec. 9 and Southern Illinois on Dec. 17 to close out the run inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.

A trip to St. George, Utah for the Trailblazer Classic will wrap up nonconference action, with OSU taking on Utah Tech on Dec. 20 before facing Oregon the next day.

Iowa State will pay a visit to Stillwater for the conference opener on Dec. 30.

The Cowgirls will travel to Orlando to face new league member Central Florida on Jan. 3 before traveling to Fort Worth to face TCU on Jan. 6. The Cowgirls won the only previous meeting with UCF, a 75-55 victory in 2015 in Orlando.

After a Jan. 10 home game against Texas Tech, the Cowgirls will hit to road to take on Kansas on Jan. 13.

OSU will welcome BYU to Stillwater for the first time as a member of the Big 12 on Jan. 17. The Cowgirls have won two of the previous three meetings between the two programs, including the lone match-up in Stillwater in 1989.

Texas visits Gallagher-Iba Arena on Jan. 20 before OSU travels to Cincinnati for the first time in program history on Jan. 24. The Cowgirls won the lone meeting between the two in a neutral site contest in 1995.

Baylor will make its way to Stillwater on Jan. 28, before OSU closes its season series with Iowa State on Jan. 31 with a trip to Ames, Iowa.

The first installment of the Bedlam Series will take place on Feb. 3 with OU coming to town before OSU embarks on a two-game road trip. OSU will visit Kansas State on Feb. 10 before heading to Texas Tech on Feb 14.

A home date with Houston on Feb. 17 will mark the third meeting between the two programs and the first since a Cowgirl victory in Stillwater in 1993.

UCF will make its first-ever trip to Stillwater on Feb. 21 before OSU heads to Norman to face OU on Feb. 24.

OSU will wrap up its home slate with a Feb. 27 contest against West Virginia before closing out the regular season at Baylor on March 3.

The Phillips 66 Big 12 Women’s Basketball Championship will take place March 7-12 in Kansas City’s T-Mobile Center for the first time.