Bryce Thompson Represents End of an Era for Cowboy Basketball

In the evolving landscape of college basketball, finding a four-year player will only get tougher.

Over the past four seasons, Oklahoma State has been among the worst teams in the Big 12 and failed to make an NCAA Tournament appearance. The Cowboys’ struggles across those four years have been immense.

From a postseason ban in 2022 to a late losing streak ending the team’s tournament hopes in 2023 to a 12-win season leading to Mike Boynton’s firing in 2024 to Steve Lutz’s roller coaster debut season in 2025, OSU has been through it all. Of course, at every step of the way, Bryce Thompson has been along for the ride.

Thompson hasn’t always had the most successful college basketball career. After struggling to find his role at Kansas as a freshman, Thompson spent his final four years with the Cowboys.

His role in Stillwater changed drastically from year to year and even from the beginning to end of a season. Sometimes, he was the team’s top scoring option, and other times he was simply a secondary ball handler who had nothing close to a green light.

Despite everything he went through and everything the Cowboys were dealing with as a unit, there was never a doubt that he would continue to be a rock for the program. After he played his final game in 2025, the Cowboys are left with a clear hole to fill in Stillwater, and it might never be filled in the same way.

Finding players in the era of the transfer portal and NIL who want to stick around for multiple seasons is difficult. Finding anyone who wants to be with the same program for four seasons is unheard of anymore.

With Thompson gone and the 2025-26 roster filled with mostly newcomers, it appears that the Tulsa native could have been the end of an era in college basketball for the Cowboys. While other sports don’t have this problem, men’s basketball is such a competitive landscape defined by experience that teams don’t want to take time developing players over four seasons or players don’t want to wait for their opportunity to arise.

There was never a doubt that the Cowboys would miss Bryce Thompson because of what he did on the court, but he also represented a type of player that might not appear in Stillwater again in the near future.