2020 Has Been a Crummy Year for OSU Athletics, but Things Will Get Better

The decade has not gotten off to a hot start for anybody it seems but even moreso for those whose fandoms reside in Stillwater.

From football players momentarily revolting against Mike Gundy’s apparel to the NCAA seemingly trying to take the highest-rated basketball commit in program history away, it’s been a nutty few weeks, but since January this thing has been wobbly.

The OSU basketball team started the year 0-8 in Big 12 play after star player Isaac Likekele got mono. The team battled back and were nearly on the NCAA Tournament bubble after a last-second win in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament when boom … global pandemic ends the season.

The wrestling team thumped everyone at its Big 12 Tournament, but had no chance to make a national splash, with the hardest pill to swallow being Nick Piccininni not getting a chance to win that elusive individual title.

The OSU baseball team was so close to Omaha in 2019, and 2020 was supposed to be a great year. It started out that way. OSU started the year 13-5 and was about a week away from opening a new top-of-the-line stadium with a former president scheduled to throw out the first pitch, but nah, pandemic.

Softball made it to Oklahoma City in 2019 and beat national power Florida there. Kenny Gajewski reloaded and his Cowgirls were 19-5 in 2020, but that got cut before the story finished.

OSU golf was entering a new era, and while without Matthew Wolff and Viktor Hovland, in-state standout Austin Eckroat was starting to make a name for himself when things shut down.

Then there were Gundy’s initial thoughts on COVID-19 and how he needed to get his players back to pump money through the economy. No matter the side of the argument you were on for that, it divided parts of the fan base.

Eddie Sutton died. That was sad for everybody.

The NCAA went nuclear on the basketball program after mentioning OSU did all it could with Lamont Evans and that the program gained nothing from Evans’ actions. Yet still with the nation’s top prospect on the way in, the NCAA decided to levy a postseason ban and loss of scholarships at the program as well as the opportunity for Cade Cunningham to play elsewhere if he so chooses.

And then there was Gundy wearing an OAN shirt on a fishing trip and the most well-known athlete across all of OSU athletics standing up against it. Again, no matter what side you’re on there, it’s dividing people.

Then even more recently the best big man OSU’s basketball program has seen in a long while entered the transfer portal.

Am I forgetting anything?

Things could be on the up, though. Gundy and Hubbard seemed to, at least begin to, hash out a few differences. Although his status still seems up in the air, Cunningham hasn’t announced that he is going anywhere else.

And 2020 has been worse for others. People are dying with a virus tearing though the country. People are going out for jogs and being hunted and killed. People are having knees on the back of their necks for nearly nine minutes. Fires scorched Australia.

OSU is going to be fine because it has to be. One of these days the sun will come up, and it’ll feel all the better that the community got through all it did. And it might not even take a turn of the calendar to get there. Here are some wise words for it being midway through June:

When this virus is under control and when we make strides toward (and hopefully one day reach) equality, a ball will fly end over end in Boone Pickens Stadium, a ball will be tossed up above Eddie Sutton court and the OSU family will be brought back together stronger than it’s ever been.