Reader Questions: Which Coaches Haven’t Swept Kansas?

We got some spicy reader emails this week — RIP RPI — and some solid questions. First up, a gem from Keith about what exactly Mike Boynton just accomplished.

I don’t know how difficult this information would be to find but I think a list of coaches who haven’t swept Bill Self and Kansas would be very interesting – Keith J.

Coaches who have not swept Bill Self since he took over KU:  Scott Drew, Wayne Morgan, Greg McDermott, Fred Hoiberg, Steve Prohm, Jim Woolridge, Bob Huggins, Frank Martin, Bruce Weber, Lon Kruger, Travis Ford, Brad Underwood, Trent Johnson, Jamie Dixon, Rick Barnes, Shaka Smart, Billy Gillispie, Chris Walker, Tubby Smith, Chris Beard, Barry Collier, Doc Sadler, Ricardo Patton, Jeff Bzdelik, Tad Boyle, Billy Kennedy, Quin Snyder, Mike Anderson and Frank Haith. That’s 29 in all.

Coaches who have swept Bill Self since he took over KU: Mike Boynton

I hope you had a great Sunday thanking our Lord and savior for Mitchell Solomon 😉 I don’t think this OSU team will go to the tournament. The committee might not put five teams from the same conference as 10 seeds or lower. Entering this weekend Joey Brackets had KSU and OU at 10 seeds, while Texas and Baylor were slated for the play-in games. Again, this is just my opinion and I hope its wrong.  Also the computers do not show favor to us.

Your comparison of OU and OSU’s non-con schedule is exactly what has been bothering me every time an analyst says we have a “weak” non-con schedule. Realistically, who cares if Charlotte, Houston Baptist, and Pepperdine have 5 wins or 10?  At some point bad teams are bad teams (like you stated). Teams should be judge based on how many good teams they play. I define “good” as power 5 or really good mid-major.

Here’s how many “good” games the four 8-10 teams played and their records

OSU: 4 (Wichita, FSU, Texas A&M, and Arkansas) 1-3
Baylor: 5 (Wisconsin, Creighton, Xavier, Wichita, and Florida) 2-3
Texas: 6 (Ole Miss, Butler, Duke, Michigan, Gonzaga, and Alabama) 3-3
OU: 6 (Arkanas, Wichita, USC, Oregon, Alabama, and Northwestern) 4-2

When looking at those numbers there are a number of reasons why OSU should at least lumped in with those teams.

The biggest reason I love this OSU team is because they are playing as close to the ceiling as possible. This year could have been similar to 2015-2016 where at this point we were talking about Travis Ford’s replacement as opposed to the NCAA Tournament. -Grant M.

I agree with you about the last part, although you could argue that OSU could realistically be 11-7 (which to me would be the absolute ceiling with this roster). Of course they could also pretty easily be 4-14.

As for the first part, I’m obviously making a very in-depth case for why Oklahoma State should be talked about as a bubble team. The only problem is that I’m having a hard time seeing that they should clearly be in. There’s not some outlier statistic that screams “this is definitely a NCAA Tournament team” so people just fall back on “well the nonconference stunk so, uh, look over there Kentucky is good again.”

Here’s my thing. Put them where you put Texas. I can live with that. They’re the exact same teams. Same points scored against each other in the regular season. Both 5-10 in Quadrant 1 games. OSU was 4-3 in Quadrant 2, Texas was 3-3. Both 10-0 in Quadrants 3-4. It’s the same resume! But because Texas beat Lipscomb (which is just 15 spots behind Oklahoma State in RPI despite one of the most horrific schedules in college basketball history!) and VCU instead of Pepperdine and Charlotte, they’re probably going to get in and OSU probably won’t.

I can live with you putting OSU where you put Texas. I can’t live with Texas getting in because Lipscomb is No. 103 in RPI because they played a couple of good teams and got absolutely obliterated by them.

While we’re here, this Toledo resume should tell you everything you need to know about RPI. The RPI ratings say Toledo is better than Oklahoma State. Here’s their resume. They’re 1-5 in Quadrant 1-2 games. One and five. And RPI says they’re better than Oklahoma State, which is 9-13 in such games. Kansas beat Toledo by 38 points.

There is no way to statistically prove this or anything but in your opinion, does OSU go 18-13 and 8-10 in B12 with Underwood this year? They may have beat KState, Baylor and TCU at home instead of KU twice and WVU on the road, but do you think Underwood would have been able to coach this team to that record? Do you think Gottlieb could have done that? -James E.

This is a great question. This question is why this site was invented some seven years ago. I think Underwood is a terrific coach, but this year was not a good look for him. Was he buoyed by Jawun Evans last year? I suppose, but those SFA years weren’t nothing. Those teams had an identity. They were tremendous offensively. They hummed. Gottlieb is obviously still an unknown (though I stand by my take that he should have been named head coach!)

OSU got away with a few this year (Texas at home, Iowa State at home, OU at home, WVU on the road), but it also had some games that it let get away (KSU on the road, Texas on the road, Arkansas on the road, Tech on the road). It’s hard to say Underwood or Gottlieb would have affected those games differently because I think their primary boon would have been at home where they would have more easily filled GIA (Underwood because of continuity and Gottlieb because he’s Gottlieb).

OSU was 5-3 in Big 12 games decided by 5 points or less this year. They were 3-5 last year under Underwood. Boynton was kind of sneaky good at the end of games this year.

I’ll say they would have been a game on either side of their Big 12 record with Underwood. Who knows with Gottlieb. There would have been such a big transition for him and his staff. There was at least a little continuity with Boynton, even if he had to get used to the learning curve of in-game coaching (which, by the way, he was pretty adept at).

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, too. Is Boynton somebody who thrives under the chaos of a season like this one but struggles to build something? It doesn’t seem like it, but he needs to start building, to start landing some croots. He talked about hanging banners on Saturday night after besting Billy Self once again. People won’t forget that. Year 1 was perfect for him. Overachieved but still had a losing record. This is the Gundy blueprint! You start out at the bottom and get incrementally better until you’re rubbing elbows with Big 12 royalty every single year.