International Forward Set to Make History For Cowboy Basketball Next Season

Oklahoma State will see something it hasn’t in more than six decades when next season tips off.

Before the 2023-24 season, the NCAA announced a rule change that would allow players to wear jersey numbers including the numbers 6-9. Before the change, players had only been allowed to wear digits from 0-5, with the most recent time players could wear 6 or above being in 1957.

Over the past two seasons, some Cowboys have taken advantage of the rules and had numbers involving digits higher than 5. However, no OSU player in the past two years has taken full advantage of the rule and used a number higher than 55, which was the previous highest number allowed.

That is set to change next season when Lefteris Mantzoukas takes the floor for the Cowboys. On OSU’s official roster, Mantzoukas is listed as No. 72, marking the true beginning of a new era for jersey numbers at OSU.

While jersey numbers above 55 had already been legislated out of the NCAA by that time, Larry Sullivan’s No. 64 in 1958-59 was the most recent instance of a Cowboy wearing a jersey number that high. While OSU’s all-time roster paints a clear picture of high jersey numbers from the 1930s through the 1950s, the Cowboys will still see something next season that hasn’t been seen in Stillwater in over 65 years.

With Oklahoma State changing its name from Oklahoma A&M in 1957, Mantzoukas also narrowly missed out on technically becoming the first OSU player to grace a jersey number above 55. While it has been over six and a half decades since the Cowboys had a player with such a high jersey number, there are some other facts to put into perspective just how long that has truly been.

That 1959 team was coached by Henry Iba and played in Gallagher Hall. Of course, the Cowboys now play in Gallagher-Iba Arena, with the legendary head coach being added to the arena’s name in 1987.