Originally published at: Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 91-68 Loss to Cincinnati
Takeaways from OSU’s blowout loss in Ohio.
For everyone who .thought Mike Holder was a problem, you better get to hoping Chad’s era turns on a dime. Basketball, Baseball And football haven’t been worth tĥe price to park my truck the last few years.
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Glad I did not spend any of my time today watching this. I figured it would be a loss after Parsa got hurt but man this is embarrassing.
Holder put us in this situation. He cratered this program out with two inexplicable bad coaching hires. At least he didn’t extend Boynton out 5,000 years. You don’t come back from a 20 year lull in a couple years. That said, outside of wrestling, Weiberg has proved nothing to me, and I’m a little skeptical of him, but… this is essentially Lutz’s first year. He doesn’t get a pass, but he gets the benefit of the doubt.
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I’d love to know the percentage of 3s shot against us off of offensive rebounds. It’s gotta be, what, 80%? I felt like that’s basically all I was watching on a loop for a while. I didn’t finish watching the game because even I, in my foolish optimism, have my limits.
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Hot take deluxe.
“Not only should we fire Lutz, but also the guy who hired him! Yeah the same guy who hired Morris, Taylor, and Hoyt!”
Tell me you’re an idiot without saying you’re an idiot.
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Yeah I stopped about a third of the way into the second half. I’m nowhere near giving up on Lutz (see above post) but for all the reasons, both obvious ones and obscure, that we suck this hard right now, I can only witness so much pain myself before I have to shut it off.
I have officially given up on this season and have started my yearly wistful hoping for serious improvement next season, which at this point would seem to require most or all of the following: the return of Clary, Vukovic, and Ahmed, the immediate excellence (hopefully) of our three freshen phenoms, and a few fortunate transfers in.
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If I were to rank Weiberg’s hire so far:
- David Taylor: 1st year got OSU to 3rd place with 2 national champions and the sky is the limit.
- Jayce Hoyt: In four years as the women’s BB coach, three 20 win seasons and two (soon to be three) NCAA tournament appearances. Only complaint is the lack of tournament wins.
- Steve Lutz: Two years and one (soon to be two) NIT appearances. Needs to make the NCAA sooner rather than later.
- Eric Morris: Only been on the job for a few months, but off-season has been positive. Need to see results on the field.
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Thanks for putting Morris 4th. Yeah, he was a top candidate, but that doesn’t mean anything until the ball’s in the air.
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I like Lutz and am not giving up on him after two seasons (you could argue 1 1/2 seasons since he got such a late start last year) but the big questions are, can he really coach defense or is this team incapable of playing defense? I think it is the latter, nice kids but they just don’t listen.
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I personally think Weiberg’s hires are fine so far until they’re not. I think Morris will be fine. One thing I’ll bet right now is that we’re not going to be the worst P4 program in the country during any season while Morris is here.
Insightful
I lean towards the latter, but if it’s the former, then it seems like we need an assistant on staff who knows what it takes to play defense in the Big 12.
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To the question of whether Lutz can coach defense or is it the players…
The jury is out, but these things are rarely just one or the other.
Last year we were better on defense, but I do remember us helping off quite a bit and leaving opposing shooters pretty open. Then again, I remember us doing this quite a lot under Boynton too, and even Underwood. So is that a common theme? I do think Arturo Dean’s solid D really helped make us better defensively last year, and the other players collectively weren’t as bad as this group.
The guys on the reload podcast recently made a good point…that we lack interior size this year (Parsa was great but he struggled against the bigger centers of the league), and this causes us to have to help off more. Pick your poison.
I agree with this take. I said it on here over a week ago. You can’t keep giving up 80+ per game in this league to average teams, and then expect to win. I think it’s a combination of both. Lutz not enforcing defensive pressure, and the players being delusional about their capabilities. Eventually, you have to come to the realization as a coach and player that other teams are on par or better than you. I’ve not seen anything change since our 1-6 record over the last 7 games.
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I have a number of specific issue with Lutz’s basketball thinking.
1. What happened to the winning with W. Kentucky pace we bought?
Even if you are pulling the ball out of the net, you can go fast. C. Coleman’s, Roy and Clary are all best in transition. Last year Lutz’s slow-play excuse was “I don’t have MY players.” And now?
2. In the half-count, High-ball-screen offense is NOT working
It never led to an advantage. Fallah should have 5 more shots a game. End the year with 2-bigs running high-low. Guards jacking 3’s is a secondary option, not primary.
3. Defense is about effort and focus
If you don’t play defense, there are open seats on bench. Also, Cincy’s bigs were not scoring off 1:1 moves. How many contested 3’s did they hit? Don’t help. Lutz didn’t adjust.
4. No player development
Miller, Crotty and Ahmed, etc., no one got better over the year. This does NOT bode well for next season, doesn’t keep players, who don’t grow.
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The coach has shown us what he does. Do we find that acceptable?
Good points in there. Agree on the 1:1 defense on bigs. Quit helping. Stay on the shooters. And agree with the observation of the offense. Half court has gotten pretty bad. No motion and very little high/low action.
I don’t think lutz is the guy. Hasn’t shown to improve where we are bad and is too soft on players that continue to make the same mistakes. I guess he could turn it around but my money is he’s let go eventually. Love to be wrong.
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I haven’t called for the firing of anyone besides Gundy. I’m glad Taylor and Hoyt have had success but I’m not driving to Stillwater and paying for tickets and parking to watch wrestling or women’s basketball.
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Yes, ar1 is an idiot.
Is Hoyt a great hire? There seems to be a lot of love, and I honestly don’t follow WBB, but we seem to be pretty much the same team we’ve been for 20 years: semi-regular, middle-of-the-pack tournament team without any deep runs. Those are the kind of results that got Travis Ford fired. She seems to just be holding the wheel and not redirecting our trajectory. Again, this is only based on the last 20-ish years of results, maybe there are intangibles I don’t see.
MBB is more of a reclamation job (I’d take some middle-of-the-pack tournament fodder right about now). I haven’t given up on Lutz, but we’re going to need a great coach to salvage the program back to even an average level. If he doesn’t show some semblance of that next season, we probably need to move on.