While the Oklahoma State basketball team is overseas enjoying their European trip, at least one top 2019 target has the Cowboys on his mind.
Four-star combo guard prospect Mario McKinney announced his top-seven schools on via Snapchat on Tuesday and included Oklahoma State.
Along with the Cowboys were Louisville, Kansas State, Auburn, Iowa State, VCU, and in-state Missouri. McKinney has 18 total offers, and cut schools like Xavier, Marquette, Iowa, and Illinois from his list.
McKinney, a combo/point guard out of Saint Louis, is the second highest ranked player in Missouri. As of now, 247Sports has home-team Tigers as the favorite to land him.
OSU must have made quite the impression, as they are the most recent team to offer McKinney a scholarship, doing so back on July 31st.
Technically, Oklahoma State will have another scholarship available for the 2019 class even if the Boone twins keep their commitments and sign, thanks to Lucas N’Gussen choosing to transfer. It was initially expected that that spot was being saved for 2020 or another transfer. But, if Mike Boynton can land a player of McKinney’s talent, he will happily do so.
It’s hard to tell where he’s leaning at this point. McKinney is reportedly hoping to be a package deal with four-star power forward E.J. Liddell, who OSU has not offered.
If I had to make a prediction today, I’m not sure I would go with yes. With limited available scholarships, and other players showing harder leans toward the Cowboys, I think there’s a better chance McKinney stays in-state, or picks up another offer or two down the road that he ends up going with.
McKinney had a nice junior season where he averaged 23, 8, and 6. He also had a solid performance at Peach Jam last month, where he went off for 27 points on 8-of-16 shooting, 3-of-7 from outside, and two assists in a win.