Originally published at: Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 83-69 Loss to Colorado
Another slow start spells doom for the Pokes.
Glad I went to the movies instead of watching this.
Another huge portal infusion is needed for next year. Send most of this team on to other pretender schools. Lutz has one more year before his seat gets hot.
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Time to just play the underclassmen and Fallah. No need to play the other seniors anymore
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I am really, really, really concerned about Lutz’s ability to manage these players and “in-game” strategy. Not saying Lutz is not the guy but Weiberg needs to make sure our basketball program gets to at least a respectable level sooner than later.
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I’m concerned about alumni willing to spend money after this season.
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Lutz has now had a first year of an offensively inept but hard working team. And then a second year of a (sometimes) offensively talented team but one that is inconsistent with effort and plays dumb. I hope this experience in the Big 12 has informed him enough to make adjustments with recruiting and coaching for his third year.
Despite some cupcakes in the non-con, this team had me pretty confident that we were going to make a legit run to make the tournament. Especially after the A&M game and some solid road wins. I know the Big 12 is super tough but this team had a vibe and swagger early on that just fizzled over time and I’m not sure why.
I thought I was done with apathy for OSU basketball. Disappointing.
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Almost two year in and it’s more of the same. Lutz seat should be warm. This offseason is going to be critical because I think next year is NCAA tournament or bust.
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There’s an odd urgency from the fan base that I interpret as “We need to fix this quick before we become nationally irrelevant!”
Folks, outside of one Cade year, which was fun but not that successful, we’ve been a below average program for the better part of 20 years.
We are irrelevant. I’m eager to return to relevance, but the urgency isn’t really that high.
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Your interpretation is wrong. It’s not an urgency to remain relevant. It’s a desperation to become relevant again.
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Well, I can finally stop hanging on to optimism.
I still don’t think it’s fair to hold the first season against him, but Lutz should get one more season to show us something to be hopeful for. That’s probably got to be a tournament berth… there could be a few scenarios where it’s not, but what a letdown.
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No, we don’t need a portal infusion. We need some (stress, “some”) of the players to stick around to build on what they’ve learned. We have three highly ranked freshmen coming in next season, and as I’ve said before, good teams are built around experience under the same coach as Eddie did with upperclassmen. If next year’s team is made up of a bunch of new portal players to go along with the three new phenoms, I think we will struggle again. What we are currently witnessing is, in my opinion, a bad combination of a whole bunch of new faces every year with a coach who either struggles to get his concepts across or who doesn’t have good concepts in the first place, especially on defense.
Speaking of which, I’m becoming more convinced with each passing game in which we make other teams look like the Harlem globetrotters shooting from downtown that we do NOT “play” a good defense. With a couple of exceptions (the “olé” defense of some of the players) it’s looking like it’s what’s being taught. I’ve never seen so many opponents shoot so many wide open threes, never in 35 years of watching OSU hopes. Our helping-off and rotations are allowing opponents to rotate the ball so quickly to a wide open shooter it’s insane. Every game. EVERY GAME. It’s becoming ludicrously obvious.
Getting really tired of this. Really hoping Lutz can figure this out.
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I’m really starting to wonder if Lutz knows how to teach solid in your face defense. We continually allow crap shooting teams to blitz us from the 3 point line. Not a couple but every single one. Remember Lutz wasn’t out first or second choice, I don’t give a dam what it costs hire Self. He has a few good years. I can’t think of anyone else that can remedy our situation I’m so sick of being sure we can make the NIT
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It’s the coaches job to make sure the players are in a position to succeed, and doing the same sh_t every game makes me doubt Lutz. I mean if this team can’t guard the three point line, do something different! Stop saying we need to do better (no sh_t!) and come up with a different in game plan.
And as everybody else is saying, he can have one more year, but that’s it. There does need to be some continuity with the squad tho (I’ll be glad to see Roy go) so there’s something to build on.
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This team just isn’t very talented guys. It’s not overly complicated. I guess if you wanna blame Lutz it is on him for bringing them in. But i doubt these guys were the top targets they were hoping for. Nothing personal. I don’t know any of them. But they’re just not good enough for this level. They would have had to gel together amazingly and that didn’t remotely happen. That’s where i blame the coach. But it ain’t easy. College basketball is brutally competitive.
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Eh… not a good excuse. Everyone was saying what a buy-in he had from the donors and, unlike last year, he was here for the beginning of the portal. If he was funded and got a crack at the whole crop of portal guys, then that’s on him. Next year, he’ll have had a group of high school recruits under him for a year, so if there aren’t some results, there’s no more excuses.
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Okay, so here’s where I part ways from this mentality. Even IF the reason for our poor defense is Lutz (it isn’t entirely, if at all; see my earlier comment re. the matador olé defense that guys like V Miller, Roy, and a few others tend to demonstrate), the man has really had only one true year putting a team together with a full choice of portal guys. To suggest he’s on the hot seat after only this long, or even after next year, isn’t giving the man a fair shot, and would seriously dissuade any prospective coach from wanting to take a chance on leading our program.
IMHO, Lutz needs to be given four full years, given that his first year couldn’t really counted against him, and that we haven’t finished year two. And I would point out that we are in better shape than the last 12-20 season under Boynton. Let’s not forget how bad we sucked and how low our program has gotten. It’s not easy to dig out a buried program, even with the portal, which is a double edged sword. (I think it’s tougher for basketball than football, as the pool of really talented and available hoops players is far less than with football.) Fans can be very shortsighted and impatient. We can call out seeming deficiencies but still be realistic with our expectations.
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1.) Totally disagree about football being easier to turn around than basketball. You go 7-8 guys deep in basketball. A football team has 22 starters plus probably twice that many subs, rotational, special package, injury replacement guys. One center piece talent and 3 or 4 decent roleplayers is a solid team in basketball. You need so much more than that for a football team.
2.) I agree with impatience of fanbases, but on the other hand, the portal has made it such that quicker turnarounds are more possible and so it’s a more reasonable expectation. If you can’t do it in two seasons (not counting the first season), it’s a better indication than it used to be that you can’t do it in four.
3.) I didn’t really give a barometer for what success is, but it needs to be better than this year. We need to be on the upswing this early, right? Or were you indicating we’re restarting again? Had we beaten ASU and TCU, we’d probably be in a bubble conversation, so how much better can we be and not expect a tournament berth? We need improvement next year… tourney, top half of the conference, deep conference tourney run… something.
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I see it as a half-n-half. I think you have better talent than a year ago. You’ve proven you can play close or beat decent teams (BYU, UCF, TCU) Theres four or five games on this schedule that could’ve been won. If the roles reverse you’re looking at an overall 20-7 record with an 8-6 conference record. A bid to the tourney is almost a guarantee at this point.
The largest issue (which I’ve said since the USF game) is our inconsistency on defense. You can even go look at what I said during that game. You can’t keep giving up 80+ ppg in this conference and expect to not be on the losing end of it. Especially when the other team knows who they need to contain to beat you. That’s on Lutz for maintaining a Gundy / Dunn strategy way too late into the season that everyone else has figured out.
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Hey champ,
You almost made it. Up your dosage.
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