How Does Brad Underwood Define Postseason Success?

Kyle Cox wrote a good piece for us this morning about Brad Underwood’s first NCAA Tournament as the Oklahoma State head coach. The pressure of March causes fissures that stretch coaching trees and basketball programs for decades. That might not be fair, but it leaves us with innumerable questions.

What is success? What do we as fans define as success? Does success look different for different programs? What does it mean in Stillwater? Do you have to win in the NCAA Tournament to achieve success.

We can talk about all of those things for the rest of the offseason, but for now I thought it would be fun to ask OSU head coach Brad Underwood what success is to him.

So I hopped on the Big 12 coaches conference call on Monday and asked him.

“The NCAA Tournament is so unique, and I think we proved that a couple times at SFA,” Underwood told me. “It’s one game. You can go in there and beat anybody. We were a 14 (seed) last year and beat a 3 (seed). Fifteen (seeds) have beaten 2 (seeds).

“It’s about enjoying the moment. It’s about playing as hard as you can. It’s about trying to get your players to play at a peak level.”

Aha. There it is. “It’s about trying to get your players to play at a peak level.”

As an aside: Underwood is smart to not quantify success when I asked him — that’s when you start getting yourself in trouble with your boss. “Hey, you said anything short of the Sweet 16 was a failure that one time when the blogger boy asked you about it.”

Anyway, this is an Eddie Sutton special. Who cares if you’re good in November. How good are you in March? Do you understand the rhythm of a 35-game season? OSU looked like it was on that trajectory two weeks ago before dropping three straight to Iowa State and Kansas. Underwood thinks they’re still right there.

“I think we’re playing really well,” said Underwood. “We’ve lost three in a row. Two of them to ISU who is arguably the hottest team in the country and one to the No. 1 team in the country in a game that went down to the wire. We’re playing good. We have to find that little bit extra so we can get a peak performance from a lot of guys.

“That’s what happens. That’s how teams advance. We’re going to have to do that to beat a very, very good Michigan team.”

That “little bit extra,” if OSU gets it, will come in the form of defensive stops. OSU has gotten so few over the last two weeks, it’s sort of remarkable. ISU and KU averaged over 1.2 points per possession in the last three games against the Cowboys.

The bad news for Underwood’s boys? Michigan’s offense might be even better than those two.