Originally published at: Five Thoughts on Oklahoma State’s 94-79 Loss to Baylor
RECAP PHOTOS BOX SCORE STILLWATER — The Bears hit Eddie Sutton Court on Tuesday night like a team desperate to avoid an 0-4 start in league play, and the Cowboys didn’t have much of an answer — especially early. Oklahoma State fell to Baylor 94-79 on Tuesday night in Gallagher-Iba Arena. The loss drops the Cowboys to 13-4 and 1-3 in Big 12 play. Here are five thoughts on the game. 1. The Half from Hell What do you get when good offense meets bad defense? The first half of this basketball game. Baylor hung 57 points on the Cowboys in the first half, going 22-for-30 (73%) from the field and 9-for-14 (64%) from deep. There was some bad defense played, but the Bears also hit some heavily contested shots in the frame. At one point, Baylor was 9-for-12 from deep in the half — which is 75%. That came after Baylor went 17-for-67 (25%) from 3 in its first three Big 12 games. “There’s two mindsets,” OSU coach Steve Lutz said. “No. 1 is defend them, get your hands up and hope they miss. And No. 2 is be there on the catch, apply pressure and make them miss.…
Saw a stat late in the first half that said Baylor had average 59.3 points per game over the course of their last three games.
Then they hung 57 on us in the FIRST HALF.
Same story: no urgency with our defense. This is a much-improved offensive team, but we’ve regressed on the defensive end.
No defensive intensity.
Your first point is spot on. Also, the announcers made a huge point during the game: our team doesn’t shoot as many FTs as our opponents because we jack up too many threes. This leads to two huge problems: 1. We don’t have enough bodies around the rim for OR 2. When we fall behind, we need the clock to slow down and getting to the FT does that. Even if you shoot only 50% from the line (which is horrible), getting points with the clock stop is huge when trying to make a comeback
This one is a blow to our postseason aspirations. We need to start building a resume, and obviously GIA is the easiest place to do that.
A lot of people were ready to anoint Lutz as a great hire. There’s a lot of season left, and I don’t hold last season against him, but there’s a lot left that needs to be seen. We are not going to succeed in the Big XII with bad defense. Just beating the teams we’re “supposed” to beat isn’t going to get us into the tournament, but it is an improvement over the Boynton era.
I’d say Lutz is on a “C” trajectory this season, with an NIT invite in our future. Plenty of time to make changes. I remember Underwood turned the season around with some savvy changes when we were already into conference play, so there’s still chance for an “A” or “B” season, but this one hurts and has got to be a wake up call. We’ve got three more currently ranked teams at home to make a splash.
The frustrating thing is the athleticism and length is there…it’s a lack of “want to” on defense.
That’s coaching or recruiting, I guess. You either didn’t set the culture or recruit the culture, but it probably also takes more than one year to do that from scratch, so I’m not sure he’s behind, maybe just not there yet. It’s why Morris imported so many players. It’s importing the culture he already cultivated.
At some point, especially now that these players are getting paid, we have to start holding them accountable for their poor effort. It can’t all be on coaching or recruiting. I don’t think Lutz brings guys in that he suspects are going to give poor effort. At some point, you either have it or you don’t. But who does he bench, as our roster is currently constructed, and still expect to win? It certainly doesn’t help with the constant injuries and mysterious absences (what the hell is going on with Lefty, for example?)
I agree with you to a point, and the head coach likely should take all the blame, but we’re letting the players off too easy.
Lutz and his staff had more time to evalute this years team than last years team. In the gamble that is the portal, Lutz went heavy for offensive talent necessary in the Big XII, hoping to motive these guys to play D like the B12 plays D. It may not be until Lutz gets a solid core of his guys from high school, that are taught D from the outset (or players less set in their ways), that the team will respond to his style.
If HCSL were bringing in one or two to complement his already established system there would probably be more buy in. Hopefully getting blasted at home will motivate some of these players to finally buy in on D. ???
oSu
Yes and no. The only way to hold them accountable in that way is probably to stop paying them, I assume NIL is all paid pretty much up front and you can’t really go replace them midseason anyway, so accountability is going to be between seasons. You have to be a better judge of character than ever before. You have to know who is hungry before you pay out your resources.
That’s kind of what I mean about not having time to establish his culture. Last year was a wash. This year is his first real year. That’s why I say a “C”. I didn’t expect a culture to be established year one but it’s better than last year. A or B would be ahead of schedule on program building. Next year, I want to see more, ideally in the tourney.
What’s the deal with these CBSSN games?? So glad I bought the ESPN package to watch all the games, lol. Didn’t miss much last night I guess!
I posted this in the other post-game article, that I wonder how much is the coaching X’s and O’s on defense. Don’t get me wrong…I think Lutz is clearly the right man for the job, but our failure to guard the three seems more like a problem of our guys (all of them) helping off too much such that they aren’t in position to guard the trey. He said in this postgame that guys are “holding up hands and hoping” instead of being right there pressuring in position. Seems like maybe not helping off so much might assist with positioning. I don’t know.
All I know is we rank among the worst teams in defending the three. Seems like an adjustment might be a good idea.
Follow up comment…just watched the Lutz post-game interview. He does such a good job in these pressers. He communicates well, describing in pretty good detail what happened (what we do wrong) but without denigrating his own players. He’s a good coach and I’m glad we have him.
[quote=“pennpoke5, post:13, topic:29461”]
He said in this postgame that guys are “holding up hands and hoping” instead of being right there pressuring in position. Seems like maybe not helping off so much might assist with positioning. I don’t know.[/quote]
These players are not bought in mentally for playing defense - they don’t seem to see why it is vital. It’s attitude and effort and not sexy but they’re being paid to perform. HCSL should road trip them to watch the Thunder play defense 
you wanna play in the league for championships - this is how you must perform on defense.
Someone mentioned a zone and just practicing that may help them conceptualize what better D should be like. Also, it seems Lutz’s off guards average almost 3 rebounds a game - Randy averaged 5.1 but 8.4 his senior year, Desmond averaged 6.6, Tony 5.5 their senior years. Perhaps the off guards should chase rebounds?
oSu
Hope you’re right. I’m not there. I’m not ready to condemn or commend him. Guess we’ll see how the year wraps up.
Or bring in Marcus Smart to meet with the team. He’s made his money being a menace on defense.
LOL, Tony Allen was my first thought…
Hell, both!