Looking Back: OSU Hoops-GIA Relationship Will be Intriguing All Year

Oklahoma State played its most exciting game of the season on Saturday against Wichita State in a 78-66 loss to the Shockers. After the game Mike Boynton grabbed a microphone and implored the two-thirds full arena to keep coming and keep supporting his Pokes.

They will, of course, but only if those Pokes start putting up Ws.

The great fallacy of Oklahoma State hoops is that it is the OU or Ohio State of college basketball. That OSU hoops has enough tradition and has had enough success and enough history to sustain long dry periods bereft of wins. It most certainly is not this kind of program. OSU is an historically solid program that has as many Big 12 regular season titles (1) as Kansas State and fewer Big 12 Tournament wins (2) than Oklahoma.

It has the fifth-best winning percentage in Big 12 history (and technically sixth if you throw Missouri in). This is not the type of program like, say, Kansas that has racked up interest that it can spend in times of famine. Its season-ticket holders and weekly attendees are, like most places, earned. They are not a foregone conclusion.

And so this year’s team and this year’s coach will likely have a bumpy relationship with GIA and the folks who fill it up for most of the season. The problem, as it has been for the past several years, is that the Big 12 is laughably good. Oklahoma State currently is tied for the league lead in losses …. with two. Only 6-2 Texas has a worse winning percentage (and Texas’ two losses came to Duke and Gonzaga).

I think the sort of back and forth we’ve seen between Boynton and the fans is going to be a wrestling match all season. Boynton tweeted about the attendance on November 30 (#factsonly) but then praised the people for getting out in droves for the Shockers.

6 home games so far (including exhibition) … Avg home attendance. 4587 ?#LetsWork

— Mike Boynton (@thacoachmike) November 30, 2017

“Obviously being here in front of our fans was huge. I can’t say enough about how good our crowd was, how into it they were and how big of a boost they gave our team when we were getting stops and even when we weren’t scoring,” said Boynton after the WSU game on Saturday.

“They stayed locked in, so I thank them for that. I wanted to thank them. They certainly made a difference in the atmosphere in this building today. I think our team fed off that. There were some guys out there playing really, really exhausted, but they kept fighting through because of the energy our fans were providing. I know that our fans can do that on a consistent basis. I hope they’ll continue to do it.”

The heartbeat in GIA today was phenomenal. Thanks to all who showed up and were loud. We vow to give everything we have, every time out. Hate the we came up short because losing is never acceptable, but we will learn and grow. The results are not far way! #LetsWork #GoPokes

— Mike Boynton (@thacoachmike) December 10, 2017

Both positions are probably fair, and they are representative of what will be a roller coaster year for attendance in GIA.

Oklahoma State is better this year than most OSU fans think, but it’s not better than the perception most OSU fans have of what it should be. This is where nostalgia and hype and Iba and Eddie and the Old Barn work against you. Oklahoma State is historically a slightly-above-.500 Big 12 team, but most people think they’re a lot better than that. It’s a little bit of the problem Texas has with football (at least in the Big 12 era).

Regardless of all of this, if they win, people will show. It is the antidote of all antidotes. But will they win? It remains to be seen. They have played a bizarre schedule thus far. They have seven wins against seven teams outside of the KenPom top 150 and two losses against two teams inside the KenPom top six. How about we see a game against, say, the 58th-ranked team?

“I can’t even put into words what this crowd meant to this team tonight,” said @thacoachmike after last night's game. #letswork #okstate pic.twitter.com/QEjxartgM8

— Cowboy Basketball (@OSUMBB) December 11, 2017

The other thing Boynton has working against him is that people last year were compelled by hope because they felt the cloud of the Travis Ford Era lift. This year, though? For obvious reasons of discontinuity, there isn’t as much hope (even though, you could argue, there should be).

The next few weeks will be intriguing. OSU is in Florida against a talented FSU team and will get rim-protecting Yankuba Sima back either in that game or shortly thereafter. They’ll come home against Tulsa and UT Rio Grande Valley before West Virginia comes to town to open the Big 12 season on December 29. The Pokes go to Norman on January 3.

Four wins in those five games would be monstrous. Three would be good enough. Win all five, and GIA should be loaded up (or close to it) on Saturday, January 6 for Iowa State.

“Everything. It meant everything,” said Tavarius Shine of the crowd on Saturday. “They helped us out a lot. They help me out a lot. Sometimes when you feel like you don’t have the energy to play, you hear that crowd, and it gets you going. It gets me moving all the time. They were everything.”

“That atmosphere today in the gym from both sides was one of the better atmospheres I’ve played in,” said Mitchell Solomon who had one of the best games of his career. “(It was) just back and forth. Everyone was excited. Everyone was loud. Like Shine said, it gives you extra energy. It lets you tap into the reserve tank and lets you play even harder.”

Hopefully they get this all year, but part of me is concerned that Saturday might have been the best non-Bedlam, non-KU crowd OSU will see this season.

It goes without saying that I like Boynton. I think he’s a smart guy who has handled everything thrown at him remarkably well thus far. I love that he loves recruiting, and I love that he doesn’t seem to coach hoops because he’s good at it but rather because he loves it more than anything in the world.

And he has a fun team that plays tremendous defense. Add to that the fact that he’s taking some swings on the recruiting trail, and there are actually a lot of reasons to be fired up about Oklahoma State hoops.

But, as has been the case since the beginning of amateur athletics, all the passion and fervor on earth doesn’t fill up arenas. Wins do. Sharp-dressed, young, energetic coaches who lead disciplined, fun teams with lots of characters do. As long as they post Ws. And it has become clear with the glut of outrageously good squads in this year’s Big 12 and the lack of a closing kick OSU has showed thus far, that is going to be incredibly difficult.