10 Incredible Facts About the Last Time OSU Won a NCAA Tournament Game

Mark Cooper’s post today about OSU’s March drought got me thinking about Cowboy hoops and the NCAA Tournament. Here’s the box score from OSU’s last win in the Big Dance on March 20, 2009 — that’s 3,649 days ago.

Ten years is a long time. Ten years ago, this site didn’t exist, many of you (myself included) weren’t married with kids and several of us were probably still in college (or high school! or middle school!)

So I wanted to dip back a little bit and look at 10 things about the world (and specifically the Oklahoma State world) that were true the last time Oklahoma State won a NCAA Tournament game as well as a few that have happened since then.

• Brandon Weeden had thrown three college passes. He was 1 for 3 for 8 yards against Missouri State on September 13, 2008. He also had one rush (!) for two yards. Since that time he has thrown 2,065 college and professional passes.

• Mike Gundy had just crossed the $1M threshold as a head coach. Since OSU’s last NCAA Tournament win, Gundy has made about $30M as head coach.

• Rickie Fowler was an amateur golfer. He had not turned pro. Oklahoma State does not have a NCAA Tournament win since Rickie Fowler started playing professional golf.

• Justin Blackmon had 0 college receptions. Zero. Tylan Wallace was nine years old. The last time Oklahoma State won a NCAA Tournament game, Tylan Wallace was in fourth grade.

• Barack Obama had been president for 39 days. Not even six weeks!

• Eddie Sutton was one year removed from his final coaching job at the University of San Francisco.

• Dez Bryant had yet to make $1 of the $57M he has made between that NCAA Tournament win over Tennessee and today.

• Kentucky has 28 NCAA Tournament wins since OSU beat Tennessee. Butler (!) has 16. West Virginia has 11. Baylor has 10. VCU has eight. La Salle has three, same as Florida Gulf Coast. Cornell and Harvard have a pair each. Norfolk St., Holy Cross and Morehead State all have wins. You can see the full list here.

• Last time OSU won a NCAA Tournament game, Nick Saban had eight losses at Alabama. He now has 21. He has five more titles than OSU has NCAA Tournament wins since 2009.

• The last time OSU won a NCAA Tournament game, this was the most advanced piece of technology Apple had ever invented.

Selection Sunday will come and go today, and Oklahoma State will not be involved for the third time in the last four years. Since 2000 Oklahoma State has just 11 NCAA Tournament wins, one more than Kansas State and Baylor and the same number as Iowa State. That’s the company this program has kept over the last two decades.

OU and Texas both have nearly twice as many NCAA Tournament wins as the Pokes (Kansas is one shy of 50) in that span of time. As much as we like to tout GIA and the Tradition and History of it all, the reality is that since the turn of the century Oklahoma State has not been very good at basketball overall.

Maybe that will change soon — hopefully that will change soon — but the anniversary of a decade of futility is one more reminder of what once was and what could (but may never) be again.