This will be Oklahoma State’s first season under Steve Lutz, who replaces Mike Boynton. Lutz took the last three teams he coached -- two at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and last season at Western Kentucky – to the NCAA Tournament. It’ll be tough to make it four in a row. There has been a near complete roster overhaul. The team has 11 newcomers -- a lot, even in the transfer portal era. Big 12 coaches picked the Cowboys to finish 14th in the 16-team conference.
Bryce Thompson (senior, SG, 11.6 ppg.). Thompson is the top holdover from the Boynton era. He will bring experience and versatility to the squad. He shot 34.4% from 3-point range last season. He only played 18 games last season after suffering a season-ending shoulder injury against Kansas last season, but he should be ready to go at the start of the season.
Davonte Davis (senior, G, 5.9 ppg. at Arkansas). Davis made the SEC All-Defense team in 2023 and can score the ball too. He scored 1,118 points for the Razorbacks and is ninth in school history with 314 assists. He played in eight NCAA Tournament wins.
Khalil Brantley (senior, G, 15.0 ppg. at LaSalle). Brantley led LaSalle in scoring last season and added 5.3 rebounds per contest. He made 47 3-pointers last season, had 137 assists and led the team with 50 steals.
Javon Small, last year’s leader with 15.1 points per game, is at West Virginia. Brandon Garrison, a talented 6-foot-10, 250-pound big man, transferred to Kentucky. Quion Williams is at Abilene Christian after starting 28 games last year. Brandon Newman, who played on NCAA Tournament teams at Purdue and Western Kentucky, could be a key newcomer. The steady guard came to Oklahoma State with Lutz.
The Cowboys will open the season Nov. 4 at home against Green Bay. They will visit in-state rival Tulsa on Dec. 4. They will play Oklahoma on Dec. 14 in Oklahoma City. They open Big 12 play on Dec. 30, at home against No. 4 Houston.
Only three letterwinners return, and 10 were lost. … Lutz has a 69-35 career record. … Boynton went 119-109 in seven seasons. The Cowboys reached just one NCAA Tournament on his watch as he dealt with the fallout from an NCAA investigation. … The Cowboys haven’t played in the postseason since 2021, when Cade Cunningham led them to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
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FILE - Oklahoma State guard Bryce Thompson shoots during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Kansas State, Jan. 20, 2024, in Manhattan, Kan. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel, File)
JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — Rep. Mike Collins on Tuesday defeated first-time candidate Derek Dooley for the Republican U.S. Senate nomination in Georgia, advancing to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff for a seat that will help determine control of Capitol Hill for the final years of Donald Trump’s second presidency.
The president, who endorsed Collins on Sunday, will be a key fault line in the general election matchup.
The second-term congressman has identified with the president since he first won his House seat in north Georgia in 2022. A trucking company owner and son of a congressman, Collins campaigns as a self-described “MAGA warrior” and echoes Trump's false claims that his 2020 election loss in Georgia and nationally was rigged. Dooley, a former football coach who had the support of outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, did not ratify Trump's lies about the 2020 election.
The other big race on the ballot on Tuesday — the GOP nomination for governor — was won by billionaire businessman Rick Jackson, whose campaign has spent more than $100 million, much of it from the first-time candidate’s personal fortune. He outpaced Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the president’s pick who was once part of Trump's scheme to overturn the 2020 election. Collins will face Democratic nominee and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.
Despite Collins' allegiance to Trump, the congressman notably did not mention the president's endorsement during his victory speech or include the president in a litany of thank yous to his family, staff and supporters who gathered in his hometown of Jackson, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) south of Atlanta. Instead, he pitched himself as a sound conservative who can achieve bipartisan progress by “doing the right thing ... building coalitions and finding common ground.” And he promised to campaign in “every ZIP code and every community” of this closely divided state.
Collins said he’d talked to Dooley and Kemp and that Republicans “stand united around one mission” — defeating Ossoff in November. Dooley offered a similar message to his more subdued crowd in metro Atlanta.
“We have a lot of disagreements but the one thing that hasn’t changed is my opinion of Jon Ossoff,” Dooley said. “We need to work together to fire his (expletive) in November.”
Ossoff, first elected in 2020, has blasted Trump as a “national embarrassment” who is using the presidency to enrich himself and his family. The 39-year-old is the lone Senate Democrat running in a state that Trump won in 2024. Democrats face tremendous pressure to hold his seat as they try to gain a net of four seats to claim a Senate majority.
Unlike his late play in the Senate race, Trump endorsed Jones 10 months ago for governor. As a state lawmaker, Jones was one of Trump's alternate presidential electors in 2020. In the governor's race, it was Kemp who made a late-hour endorsement, announcing his support for Jones on Sunday.
Jackson celebrated his outsider status Tuesday night after overcoming Jones' heavyweight endorsements. “I’m the only candidate who doesn’t owe a thing to the political establishment,” he said. “I can’t be bought and I won’t back down.”
He added: “We proved the people of Georgia are in charge.”
Republicans have not won a U.S. Senate contest in Georgia since 2016, Trump’s first election.
Despite his ties to Trump and the Republican base, Collins has argued that he can build a broad coalition, and he plans to use immigration as a contrast with Ossoff. In the House, Collins sponsored the Laken Riley Act, a 2025 law that requires immigrants accused of certain crimes to be detained. It is named for a Georgia nursing student killed in 2021 by a Venezuelan man who was in the U.S. illegally. Ossoff voted against a version of the legislation before backing the final proposal after Trump’s return to power.
Collins won the nomination despite his Republican opponents highlighting a House ethics complaint that accuses him of abusing taxpayer funds by paying the girlfriend of his former top adviser for congressional job duties she allegedly did not fulfill. After an initial investigation, a federal panel forwarded the matter to the House Ethics Committee.
The congressman begins his general election campaign at a financial disadvantage. Collins raised about $4.9 million through the end of May, and reported having less than $1.2 million remaining. Through late April, the last time Ossoff had to file before his primary, the incumbent had raised $60.4 million and had $32.5 million on hand.
This election cycle, the president’s preferred primary candidates have a strong record so far in 2026. But Jackson’s spending power was a new variable.
Jackson, a 71-year-old business owner, amassed a fortune from his company that provides contract healthcare personnel, and he's used it to blanket television and online platforms with ads. Appealing to hard core Trump supporters, he’s pledged that immigrants in Georgia illegally will be “deported or departed.” He promises a slew of tax cuts. And previewing a potential general election argument, he’s played up his biography as a product of the state foster care system and featured his grandchildren advising him on how to make friendlier ads.
Jones, 47, comes from a wealthy family but is running a more modest campaign. Framing himself as a “proven leader,” Jones trumpeted his presidential seal of approval and time as a University of Georgia football player in the 1990s. As lieutenant governor, Jones pushed legislation that ultimately did not pass but would have disqualified Jackson’s company from receiving taxpayer-funded contracts.
Trump did not travel to Georgia to campaign with Jones but gave the lieutenant governor a fresh round of support on social media and called in to a telephone rally during the early voting period. Jones “worked tirelessly to help us WIN” and “has been with us from the very beginning,” Trump posted on Truth Social last week.
Georgia's secretary of state race was open for the first time since Trump’s attempts to subvert the 2020 election, famously pressuring outgoing Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,800 votes” to overtake Biden. Raffensberger refused.
For his potential successor, Republicans were left to choose between an outright election denier, Vernon Jones, and a state lawmaker, Tim Fleming, who avoids explicitly disputing the president’s 2020 election lies. They went with Fleming, who won the nomination on Tuesday.
Jones, a perennial candidate who was once a Democrat, embraced Trump’s “stop the steal” movement and said he stood “with those who believe there was election fraud.” Fleming, who once served as deputy secretary of state, has said there were “irregularities” in 2020, a word choice that has become code for Republicans who want neither to ratify nor call out Trump’s errant claims.
Democrats voted for Penny Brown Reynolds — a former state judge in Fulton County who also served in the Biden administration as deputy assistant secretary for civil rights for the Department of Agriculture — over Dana Barrett, a Fulton County commissioner.
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Associated Press reporters Kate Brumback in Jackson, Tom Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, and Matt Brown in Washington contributed.
Catherine Harrison, left, and Margaret Williamson view election results during a runoff election night watch party for Republican gubernatorial candidate Burt Jones, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Jackson, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
U.S. Senate candidate Mike Collins celebrates during an election-night watch party after winning the Republican nomination, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Jackson, Ga. (AP Photo/Colin Hubbard)
A woman speaks to a Fulton County Election worker before she votes in a runoff election at the C.T. Martin Recreation Center, Tuesday, June 16, 2026, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
U.S. Rep Mike Collins campaigns in Woodstock, Ga., Sunday, June 14, 2026. ( AP Photo/Bill Barrow)
FILE - Gov. Brian Kemp, center left, and Republican U.S. Senate candidate Derek Dooley greet supporters at campaign stop for Dooley at Farmview Market in Madison, Ga., on May 8, 2026. (Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, File)
