Oklahoma State's Marshall Moses finding his own path

Justin Hite — Stillwater NewsPress

All his athletic life, Oklahoma State forward Marshall Moses had been a star. He was a big-time player on his high school team and a dominant scorer. He was a McDonald’s All-American nomination.

But midway through his sophomore year in the Big 12, he wanted to quit. Moses was buried deep on the depth chart. He was the fourth big man off the bench 12 months ago.

He was ready to leave OSU when he walked into coach Travis Ford’s office.

Moses wasn’t getting the minutes he wanted. He’d only been on the floor 33 minutes in the Cowboys’ first nine games.

“He would get really frustrated when he didn’t play,” Ford said. “Rather than coming into practice and earning his minutes and making us play him because of how hard he works in practice, we would kind of go the other way.”

Moses, who had only played 137 total minutes as a freshman the year before, went in to Ford’s office expecting Ford to ask him to stay. Instead, he was ready to make a phone call to help find Moses a new home. Those weren’t the minutes he expected after averaging 25 points, 12 rebounds, four blocks and four assists his senior year in high school.

“He’s had to just be patient,” Ford said. “He didn’t always handle that in the best way and he knows that.”

Moses credits the decision to stay partly to Ford’s response, but also how he was raised. He said it’s because he was never raised to be a quitter. It’s also likely he stayed because Moses has always played with a chip on his shoulder. He’s always played with something to prove.

“I wanted to show him like, ‘Yo, you’re missing out. If I leave you, you’ll be missing out on a player who can help your team,’” Moses said. “Just having that mindset, ‘OK, I’m going to stay and work hard every day. I’m going to make Coach Ford believe in me, because right now, I know he doesn’t.’”

And as Moses said, the rest is history.

On Sunday against Arkansas-Pine Bluff, Moses scored a career-high 23 points. That tied his point total in last year’s non-conference games combined.

It’ll always be a work in progress with Moses. Because he wears his emotions on his sleeve and because his game is full of passion and emotion, it can be tough to channel.

“It’s something we’ve been looking for out of Marshall,” Ford said. “He’s put two of his best games of the year back to back. It’s about just being into it mentality, bringing energy to his game.

“... It really is the difference in our basketball team.”

Last year’s Big-12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series was the beginning of Moses’ uncertain road to OSU’s starting lineup. Against Washington, OSU (8-1) played its first game without starting center Ibrahima Thomas, who left the team midseason. This time around against Stanford (5-3) at 10 p.m. tonight, the series that got Moses his start to where he is now seems so long ago he almost doesn’t remember. What he doesn’t forget is the chance he got once he got his head on straight.

“I thank God that I got to seize mine, because I didn’t know,” Moses said. “Out of nowhere, I began to start getting minutes and coach saw the results and I began to improve.

“It’s been almost miraculous that it happened like that, but it did.”

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