Originally published at: https://pistolsfiringblog.com/five-thoughts-on-oklahoma-states-68-65-loss-to-tcu/
OSU blows a late lead in Fort Worth.
I didn’t like the lack of emotion or juice down the stretch last night. I might be mistaken, but where was the fire and grit? And we looked “touched” when TCU deployed the half court trap late. Attack the middle, could have had a layup…
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At this point, they seem to be NIT bound. Just can’t put it all together.
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The way this game ended and the lack of players “buying in” to the game plans has put the spotlight on Coach Lutz. Across several discussion boards I notice more blame and doubt on Lutz. Hoping for the best but he may lose the fans and alumni if he can’t gain momentum.
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I think it’s too early for that. The program is in a 20 year slump. However, we had soooo many fans buying into him because he was new in town and he got all of this NIL donor buy-in and we had a good non-con run. He’s by no means proven himself and neither has Weiberg who has made one stellar hire and some “let’s wait and see” hires. Next year is tournament or bust. If we don’t make it next year then he should be on the hot seat. This year is too soon. He’s only had one real season to get it together. He’s proven he’s not a miracle worker, but he can still be a program builder and good coach. For that matter, our postseason chances aren’t dead yet. Maybe there are adjustments to be made and we can make a late season push.
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This is extremely rational and reasonable, which are things I strive for but lacked last night because I was so incredulous about how we blew that game. I still kind of am - we went into half court mode and played trying not to lose. That’s on the coaching.
But I’m still trying to be hopeful. 
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I’m willing to give him 4 years. If there’s no tournament by then it’s over. Miss it next year the seat starts getting real warm. I think missing this year would be disappointing but I would look past if it we see the team keeps improving. Last night was on Lutz big time. That end of game management was catastrophic.
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I’m not sure it’s on Lutz. It might be but I don’t think we can tell that from here. I will say this though. (And I keep saying it.) Where is the team that cleaned Texas A&M’s clock? I went on record after that game as saying that we were definitely a tourney team. I thought it was a done deal. But since then it’s been a peculiar team, one that seems to struggle to win, even against lesser foes, and moreso recently. It’s like we are thinking too much and not just playing with fun and desire. Reminds me a little of some of Eddie’s teams (usually younger ones) that played tight and fearful of drawing ire from the coach.
I’d really like to see a team of players that had played more than one season together. The garbage system of portal players and NIL has us playing like a team with no chemistry. Now I sound like a grumpy old man. Now get off my lawn!
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I think Lutz being able to stack recruiting classes of his own guys from high school will help with the cohesion which is why I am willing to give him 4 years no matter what happens. That last 5 minutes of game management was brutal from Lutz. Saving all 3 time outs for the last 90ish seconds after we hadn’t scored in a few minutes and the lead was slipping is crazy. He can’t make the ball go in the hoop but he can call timeouts to get these dudes heads on straight (hopefully).
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How can you say it isn’t on Lutz when they went into take the air out of the ball mode late in the 4th quarter? That strategy puts a premium on point guard decision making which certainly isn’t either of our point guards forte. I’m hopeful Lutz will recover but I’m getting uncomfortable. Go Pokes
I say it for two reasons.
First, when you go back and watch the last few minutes, just about every bad break that could go against us did. We missed two point blank layups (Clary’s drive and Isaiah Coleman’s putback to tie at the end), we missed a couple of other open looks, and on the other end, TCU hit all four of their last FG’s, none of which were completely open looks. That’s just a bad turn of events (some would say luck). Oh, and no one here has pointed out something that to me was dreadfully obvious, something that no coach will say (or is allowed to). Once again, the officiating was atrocious. How many times can we get banged on the arm on a shot or shoved down the lane by #24 with no calls? Plenty, it would seem. TCU had a grand total of two fouls called in the first half. How is that possible?
Two, the way we play defense, and as good as we are on offense, a case can be made that Lutz made the correct move at the time, up seven with four minutes to play. As poor as our defense is, why not limit the number of looks the opponent gets when up that much? Admittedly, we didn’t play the last minute right on the 2 for 1, and the one possession with no one but our PG touching the ball wasn’t good, but again, there’s no proof that’s how Lutz drew it up. He mentioned Roy going rogue at one point, so clearly these guys still do stuff that isn’t called from the bench.
I’m not acquitting Lutz, and he even admitted he needed to do a better job getting them scoring opportunities.