Malik Rose part of Big Country’s conquests

The Thunder’s trade Thursday for Malik Rose, while almost completely irrelevant on the current basketball front, at least brought up great memories from a memorable stretch of state hoops history.

In 1995, Oklahoma State made the Final Four on the back of Big Country, and Bryant Reeves’ performance in that NCAA Tournament remains amazing.

To get to Seattle that March, OSU beat Drexel, Alabama, Wake Forest and Massachusetts. Each foe sported a great center. So great, that all four of those Big Country foes remain in the NBA today.

UMass’ Marcus Camby, in his 13th NBA season. Wake’s Tim Duncan, in his 12th year. Bama’s Antonio McDyess, in his 13th season. And Drexel’s Malik Rose, in his 13th year.

For good measure, Big Country went against yet another NBA center, UCLA’s George Zidek, in the Final Four. Zidek played three NBA seasons.

How did Reeves fare? In those four pre-Final Four games, Reeves outscored the quartet 86-57, and those monsters outrebounded Big Country 61-37. Reeves made 29 of 65 shots; the quartet made 23 of 62 against Reeves.

It was grinding, tough, ferocious post play, game after game after game. Reeves’ easiest game came in the Final Four, where he outscored Zidek 25-6 and outrebounded him 9-2.

The next easiest foe turned out to be Camby, who had just six points and four rebounds (Reeves had 24 and 10). The numbers of  McDyess and Duncan were just ridiculous. McDyess had 22 points and 17 rebounds (Reeves countered with 26 and seven). Duncan had 12 points and 22 rebounds (Reeves had 15 and nine).