Oklahoma State is Looking to Make the Most of a Bad Postseason Situation
STILLWATER – The past week or so for Oklahoma State Cowboy basketball has been filled with both ups and downs. They recorded wins over Texas Tech down in Lubbock to get to eight wins in conference play, which was followed by a three-straight win over OU, this one coming in the Big 12 tournament, all but putting the Cowboys in the NCAA tournament, barring a catastrophic loss to Texas the following game.
That’s when the floor fell out. The Cowboys lost to the Longhorns in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals, 61-47, while shooting just 27% from the floor, a loss which effective moved the Cowboys out of the NCAA tournament, which was announced on Sunday towards the end of the selection show on CBS.
The Cowboys were the first team out of the tournament, the 69th out of 68 teams, a tough pill to swallow. A few hours later, they were announced as the No. 1 overall seed in the NIT and would be traveling up to face Youngstown State as the athletic department wouldn’t be able to staff a game in GIA as they’re hosting the NCAA wrestling championships in Tulsa.
While a No. 1 overall seed with a very real chance of winning the NIT might seem like a positive, the expectation at Oklahoma State is to make the NCAA tournament, a sentiment Boynton reiterated during Monday’s media availability.
"My message to our fans is I don't want them to lower their expectations. I certainly am not going to lower mine. And this year we fell short of a goal, a goal that our program will always strive to be playing in the big tournament, if you will. So, I understand and respect their frustrations. I want to be as committed as ever to making sure that we don't have this feeling moving forward. Obviously, not everything is totally in our control; there's some things that didn't go our way this year that we didn't really have control over, but the things that we do control we've got to do a better job with."
One thing this staff and team can control is how they approach this first game. I say first game because on paper this basketball team is really good. Very athletic and play hang with anyone when they’re playing all-out. That very easily could be a problem they deal with after missing the Big Dance.
"I'll say this, I can understand people being disappointed in the season,” Boynton said. “But when you take a step back and you balance all of it, we accomplished some pretty good things. It's not easy winning eight games in this league, it really isn't. In fact, there's a team in the tournament that didn't win eight games in our conference. There was one that went to the Sweet 16 last year that didn't win eight games in our conference. And while that's not the bar right, it's still at least one game under .500 in the league, it shows the strength of the competitiveness of the conference.
"So, I don't believe in this all or nothing deal. No one wants to win more than I do. I'm the one who's got the most at stake here, let's be perfectly honest about what's going on. So, I can view the shortcomings and say I've got to do a better job in getting those corrected. And also saying, 'Man, we were really close to being one of those teams.' We're literally No. 69 on a 68-team list. And we had legitimate time missed by two significant players on our team, like that's a real thing. And I don't want to make it seem like – when you start at 11 [scholarship players], the margin for error isn't quite what you hope it would be.
"And so, I don't want to say – because I don't want these kids to feel like failures, because they're not, we had two kids get recognized for all-conference in the best conference in the country, and three sweeps in the conference. We beat two other teams that are in the tournament from our league in TCU and West Virginia; Iowa State obviously was one of the sweeps. So, we did some good things. Do we need to be better? Yes. No question. Got to be better. The goal isn't gonna change. We're not gonna start saying, 'Let's celebrate going to the NIT,' but we are gonna go try to win the NIT since we're in it."