The Big Stage Awaits Jawun Evans in First Round Matchup Against Michigan

Oklahoma State went from winners of 10 of 11 games from mid-January to mid-February, to losers of its final three before Selection Sunday. That turn of fate no doubt altered the Cowboys tournament seeding, as they fell from a 6-seed in some projections to a No. 10. But that doesn’t change the ceiling of this team, so long as Jawun Evans is doin’ the dang thing.

The floor general of OSU has been the saving grace this entire season. Not to discredit Jeff Caroll’s borderline miraculous transformation from reserve to raging success, or the evolution of Mitch Solomon into one of OSU’s best defenders. But Evans quite literally plucked his team out of the muck of an 0-6 Big 12 start to reel off five straight wins. He’s played like an All-Conference talent (He was named First Team All-Big 12, after all), and he is, in the eyes of many, one of the most undervalued NBA talents in the league.

Head coach Brad Underwood took that a step further.

“He’s been one of the best point guards in the country over the last half of the season,” Underwood said on Sunday via the Tulsa World. “Not just doing it with scoring, but setting other people up, having a 15-assist game. He’s also doing a very good job defensively.”

It’s true. Evans has been a straight up baller in so many different ways. He’s emerged as one of the best pick-and-roll guards in the country, he’s playing bigger minutes now that he’s become comfortable in Underwood’s system and learning not to foul, and he is doing it with a ton of pressure on his shoulders.

Evans is 17th nationally in utilization (percentage of possessions used), according to KenPom. And he’s fourth among players in the NCAA Tournament in that same category. So not only is he producing at an elite level, he’s shouldering one of the biggest workloads in the country while doing it. Because Oklahoma State relies on him to do it.

Friday morning against No. 7 seed Michigan will be the first NCAA Tournament game for the sophomore star. Under-seeded or not, OSU is in for quite a task against No. 7 Michigan, a top-20 KenPom team that features a top-5 adjusted offensive efficiency. The Wolverines are red-hot, having won five straight games, including a magical Big Ten Tournament title run with wins over No. 1 seed Purdue and No. 2 seed Wisconsin. But if it’s one spot Evans has thrived in this season, it’s this: Playing against top-50 teams.

In fact, in 19 games this season against top-50 competition, Evans has averaged 18.6 points — compared to 19.6 against sub-50 teams. And he’s been at his absolute peak against the very best teams, averaging 20 points per game in six contests against teams in KenPom’s top 10 — all of which earned no lower than a 4-seed in the tourney (except for No. 10 seed Wichita State, because MVC…).

Remember his 30 point game against North Carolina? Member that? That team is a No. 1 seed. That team won the ACC (a league with Duke, Notre Dame, FSU, etc..) by a full two games. That team has more pros on it than OSU has produced over the last 10 years. I don’t think that’s an exaggeration, either.

Not going to lie, that’s absolutely bananas. You’d expect a pretty dramatic dropoff against top-level teams. But instead he’s answered the call and stepped up his level of play when OSU needed a jolt. He can hang with the most talented players in the country, and he’s been able to single-handedly keep OSU in games it had no business being in.

The good news for OSU against Michigan: It has plenty of firepower to hang with the Wolverines.

Michigan is a very feast or famine type team. Right now, it has been feasting, scoring 71 points or more in its last five games. But that same team also drew a No. 8 seed in its own conference tournament. They were wildly inconsistent all season until lately.

Many people nationally are picking Michigan to continue that streak into the tournament. But if history is any indication, and specifically if Jawun Evans’ recent track record of playing top teams hold up, then Oklahoma State has more than just a chance of making it out of the first round for the first time since 2009.

He has shined all season on the big stage. And on Friday against Michigan, Evans enters the biggest cauldron of them all.