‘Hardest Practice I’ve Ever Been a Part Of’: OSU Basketball Players Discuss Intensity of a Steve Lutz Practice

STILLWATER — Steve Lutz-led practices are gaining somewhat of a mythical reputation.

Players last season discussed the high-intensity practices, but with Lutz’s second roster featuring a dozen new players, this new group is mostly going through Lutz’s regimen for the first time.

Lefteris Mantzoukas, from Greece, has played professional basketball since he was 14 years old, but he said he’s never taken part in a practice like the first one he took part in inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.

“When I first got here, our first practice was the hardest practice I’ve ever been a part of,” Mantzoukas said. “… I came here for a purpose. I came here to be a better player. I came here to grab the experience and give 100% to what I’m supposed to do, so not at all (was he wondering if he made the right decision to come to Stillwater). I knew why I’m coming. I knew what needed to be done.”

Daniel Guetta made the journey from Israel to join the Cowboys this season. Because of visa struggles, Guetta was the last Cowboy to make it to Stillwater this offseason, which didn’t make his introduction into Lutz-led practices any easier.

“For me, as well, it’s like I can’t even breathe,” Guetta said. “After the first practice, I feel in my legs, dead. I drink, like, I think six bottles of water immediately after the practice. And I came very late, so it was like very fast for me, like everything.”

So what makes it so intense? Apparently everything from hydration breaks to getting from one drill to the next.

“Early on, you gotta get used to just the pace,” Mississippi State transfer guard Kanye Clary said. “Everything is fast. Water is fast, going to the next drill, the transition is super fast, but once you get past the pace, I feel like he does a great job of — most coaches, they coach at you. He coaches you. Like, he’s not really just yelling, making noises and doing gestures just to fulfill his self, he’s actually yelling to prove his point and to get us to see what we don’t see, what could’ve worked. That’s the one thing that I love about him. He teaches great.”

There were only three returners from last season’s team, Lutz’s first as the Cowboys coach. So, three of the 15 guys had an idea of what they were getting themselves into going into that first day.

One of those guys was Robert Jennings II, who started all of OSU’s game in Lutz’s first year. Jennings said he tried to give out some warnings entering that first day.

“I was definitely interested (in seeing how the new guys would handle it) because that shows you a lot early,” Jennings said. “It shows you what people are made of, especially with a Coach Lutz practice. It’s not the easiest thing to do in the world. I had already gave them some warning, so I kinda put them on game before we actually had to step in there and actually go through the practice. But just to see how they responded, to see how they pulled through and pulled together and we got through it, and day by day we got better.”

As for the man himself, Lutz said the high-intensity training sessions are standard for him, designed in a way to help with his up-tempo style.

Lutz’s Western Kentucky team in 2023-24 led the country in KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric. Last season’s OSU squad finished 12th in the stat, while this year’s bunch projects to be in the top 10.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s just normal,” Lutz said. “When you have people coming from different areas of the world, everybody does it differently. But you don’t get to — I think last year we finished No. 12 in the country in tempo. You don’t get that way if you don’t play at a high, high level in terms of speed and quickness and pushing the basketball. They’re just having to adjust. They’ve adjusted fine.”