Hoops
March Futility Has Reigned For a Decade in Stillwater
I remember where I was when Salim Stoudamire hit the shot on Daniel Bobik in 2005. Many of you do, too. I was devastated at the time. That 2003-2005 run of Oklahoma State hoops was as good as it gets for a lifer like myself. If you don’t remember (or are currently in college or high school), move the FF button to the end of the video below and cover your eyes. Arizona went on to lose to Illinois in the regional final to go to the Final Four in an absolute classic.
Anyway, since that game in March 2005 (I turned 20 that year), OSU has won one tournament game. Yes, 624 weeks have passed, and Oklahoma State has won a single game in March. To put that in perspective, the following teams have more NCAA Tournament wins in that same span:
- Harvard
- Vanderbilt
- New Mexico
- Davidson
- Stephen F. Austin
- Cornell
- Siena
- Southern Illinois
- Morehead State
- Richmond
- Western Kentucky
- Florida Gulf Coast
- Bradley
- South Florida
- La Salle
What’s worse is the number of NCAA Tournament wins Big 12 teams have in that span.
- Kansas: 27
- West Virginia: 11
- Oklahoma: 10
- Texas: 10
- Baylor: 8
- Kansas State: 6
- Iowa State: 6
Kansas has 27 NCAA Tournament wins since 2006. Oklahoma State has 1. That is not a statistic I’m interested in looking at very much longer. But it gets worse! Of the close to 100 teams that have played five or more total games since 2006, only two teams have a worse winning percentage than OSU.
Team | Games | Wins | Losses | Win % |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hampton | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20% |
Winthrop | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20% |
Montana | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20% |
Clemson | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20% |
Colorado | 5 | 1 | 4 | 20% |
Oklahoma State | 6 | 1 | 5 | 17% |
Albany (NY) | 6 | 1 | 5 | 17% |
Belmont | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0% |
New Mexico State | 6 | 0 | 6 | 0% |
As someone who (obviously) follows all of this quite closely, it stunned me to realize how bad OSU has been at postseason hoops in the last decade. Fair or not, you are judged by what goes down in March and early April, and Oklahoma State has been failing that test for a while.
But there is hope. Brad Underwood has a nice March track record (Travis Ford did not), and Oklahoma State is just a one-point underdog in its game next Friday against Michigan.
“You forget the 0-6 start when you get here,” Underwood told the Tulsa World. “We’re all fresh and 0-0, so to speak. You’ve got to win six and you dream big and have fun and enjoy the moment because it goes fast. It flies by, you want to make sure your kids have this memory that lasts forever.”
Memories is more like it. As in … more than just one.
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