OSU basketball sliding down the status scale
In Eddie Sutton’s 15 full seasons as the Oklahoma State basketball coach, the Cowboys went to 13 NCAA Tournaments. They missed out on the ’96 and ’97 NCAAs, and Sutton came back with gusto, producing a 2000 regional final team and a 2004 Final Four squad.
OSU’s basketball stock soared, and in some ways the Cowboys’ reputation still reaps the benefits. Here’s a fun way to rank NCAA basketball programs. Very simply, just rank schools by NCAA Tournament wins. Maybe there are better ways to do it, but there is no less-subjective way.
OSU is 37-21 all-time in NCAA Tournament games, including 22-13 under Sutton. That ranks OSU No. 19 on this list. Heck, for fun, I’ll give you the list.
1. Kentucky 100-45; 2. UCLA 98-35; 3. North Carolina 96-39; 4. Duke 86-29; 5. Kansas 82-36.
6. Indiana 60-30; 7. Louisville 57-36; 8. Syracuse 48-31; 9. Georgetown 45-24; 10. Villanova 44-29.
11. Ohio State 43-23; 12. Michigan State 43-21; 13. Connecticut 42-27; 14. Arizona 41-26; 15. Michigan 41-19.
16. Arkansas 40-29; 17. Cincinnati 40-23; 18. Illinois 38-28; 19. Oklahoma State 37-21; 20. Maryland 36-21.
21. Utah 35-29; 22. Marquette 33-27; 23. UNLV 33-15; 24. Texas 32-29; 25. Oklahoma 32-25.
26. North Carolina State 32-21; 27. Temple 31-26; 28. Notre Dame 30-33; 29. Memphis 30-21; 30. Purdue 29-22.
I’ll stop there. That’s the top 30. It’s a fluid list. For instance, a school can jump way up the list with a Final Four run. OU probably could go from 25th to 20th with a Final Four run. UConn might go from 13th to eighth or ninth with a Final Four run.
But either way, it’s not a bad way to at least gauge historical basketball success. And Oklahoma State unquestionably has that.
But after a 99-75 loss at Texas on Tuesday night, the Cowboys seem sure to miss the NCAA Tournament for the fourth straight season, which frankly is difficult to do in these cartel days. The power conferences have all the, well, power, and if a school from the Big 12, SEC, ACC, Big Ten, Pac-10 or Big East is missing March Madness on a regular basis, it has no one to blame but itself.
OSU hasn’t played an NCAA Tournament game since March 24, 2005, when Salim Stoudamire hit that shot and John Lucas’ desperation jumper bounced off the rim at the buzzer, giving Arizona a 79-78 victory over OSU in that epic Sweet 16 thriller. Since that night, 122 schools have played NCAA Tournament games.
Think about that number. And here’s another. Since that night, 51 of the 73 schools in the six power leagues have played in the NCAA Tournament. And that number is about to grow, since teams like Wake Forest, Florida State, Arizona State, Missouri, South Carolina and Minnesota figure to end droughts this season.
It’s not crazy to see where come March, OSU might be one of just 15 power-conference schools to miss the last four NCAA Tournaments. That’s a major fall from where this program was not so long ago.
O-State once was a top-20 program, both historically and contemporary. The current status has fallen. The historical status could start to slip, too.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Berry, please take a look at OSU in the years that they didn’t have Eddie Sutton and Mr. Iba coaching. I believe that their winning percentage would be far less than what you would expect from a “basketball school”. My point is; since WWII OSU has not been a very good basketball school except for those two periods. This calls into question the schools contribution as opposed to the coaches contribution to winning.
You know I believe I saw this episode once on Star Trek, it was called “The Trouble with Tramels”. Let’s put this think into perspective. “Yes” OSU currently has two McDonalds All-Americans and “No” OSU has never fielded a team that included any McDonalds All-Americans under Eddie Sutton’s regime. Eddie Sutton was one whale of a coach and OSU was lucky to have him home. Eddie Sutton was also a great recruiter in spite of not having any McDonalds All-Americans. He was so cagey spotting talent and developing talent. Sure “Big Country” was a project but Eddie developed him into a star. He turned Ivan McFarland into a “warrior”! Eddie was a tremendous coach, no debating that! Eddie’s son Sean was not Eddie, much in the same vein that Pat Knight is not Bobby! Let’s get down to brass knuckles, OSU fans and Mike Holder wanted Bill Self. We wanted to bring home another of OSU’s favorite sons to his alma mater aka Mike Gundy but were unsuccessful. So the search ensued and I’m sure a lot of Big XII coaches including Self had a lot of input as to who to go after. We rolled the dice and came up with Travis Ford. Texas had great success going after a Big East coach. Travis will be a good coach at OSU. He’s going through what every knew coach to the Big XII goes through and that’s growing pains. First year coaches get very little respect from referees in the Big XII. Right now, OSU is playing with basically four guards and a power forward. We absolutely have no center. We have a shallow bench. Eddie always had a shallow bench but he had eight guys who at any time could be called a starter. Getting into foul trouble was always difficult for Eddie’s teams but by the time that happened the game was usually well in hand. That’s why you often saw Eddie work the clock and emphasize defense. When you’re dealing with a short bench you have to make the clock your allie. Eddie always worked the ball inside and he always played suffocating defense. Bottom line, we’re hurting this year! Keiton Page is just a freshman and he’ll have to learn to shoot beyond the three point line and be given the green light to do so. He’s just too short to square up and shoot at the three point stripe. He’ll have to be like Mark Price and be able to make it from anywhere on the floor. Expect better things to come in years to follow, the cavalry is on it’s way!
Trammel your Article left a few things out,I mean nothing is mentioned that Ford was brought in to late to recruit anyone for 2008-2009. That Ford inherited a shoot first point guard that was over weight for 3 years and still needed to lose 15 pounds going into his Senior year. Nothing was mentioned about the next 6 best players on the depth chart are really shooting guards or small forwards. You forgot to mention all the discipline issues that Sean Sutton left behind one’s that Ford immediately handled. Left unmentioned was the excellent recruiting class signed by Ford for the 2009-2010 season. OSU blew it when they hired Sean Sutton to replace his Father,almost immediately disciplinary problems and grade issues started, James-on Curry has to leave school cause he would have been academically ineligible, the Suttons waste a scholarship and recruiting time on Gerald Green, everyone knew for months Green was going into the NBA draft.
Berry, thank you for the very interesting insight on the O-State program. Your information on the Top 30 was fascinating for a hoops junkie.
I was curious, before the Billy Donovan championship teams at Florida–how many NCAA Tournament wins did the Gators B-Ball program have in their entire history?
Two other programs I would be interested in would be Marquette and Arkansas.
How many NCAA Tournament wins total has Marquette garnered since Al McGuire?
How many NCAA Tournament wins total has Arkansas garnered since the departure of Nolan Richardson?
A tough situation at OSU, but I honestly felt that with Eaton, Harris, Anderson, Obi, and (then) Thomas– and with a Big 12 Conference that is down in hoops overall–that OSU could legitimately compete for a No. 5 seed in the conference.
Even though I’m an OU fan, I hope Travis Ford can get the program back somewhat to where it was because it was good for the state and good for the conference.
Mike Jackson