Peter G. Aiken-USA TODAY Sports
Oklahoma State Cowboys’ Marcus Smart had the talent to be a top 10 pick or at the very least a lottery pick in the 2013 NBA Draft, but he did something that most college basketball players with his kind talent rarely do, and that is returned for his sophomore season.
With Smart returning, Oklahoma State could very easily be the best team in the Big 12 next season. Le’Bryan Nash and Markel Brown will also be back. These three players averaged 14 or more points a piece on the season.
With these three returning–if you count Nash as a guard, since he is 6’7” and a guard/forward–the Cowboys will instantly have one of the best backcourts in the nation. It is kind of hard to argue this with the production of these players and the talent level.
Smart is arguably the best out of the three, though, which is why it was kind of a shock that he did not enter the NBA draft after his first year with the Cowboys.
Whether the case, Oklahoma State will definitely take him back. Smart averaged 15.4 points per game, 5.8 rebounds per game, 4.2 assists per game and three steals per game this season. That is pretty incredible for a four-year player, let alone a freshman. It is a good thing that Smart is returning, though, because he needs to improve his shot. He only shot 40.4 percent from the field and 29 percent from behind the arc.
Those two numbers alone would likely scare NBA teams a bit, so Smart will return to college and he will likely improve on both. Expect Smart and the Oklahoma State Cowboys to have any even better year in the 2013-14 college basketball season as a result of Smart returning for his sophomore season.
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