The Big Problem With Oklahoma State’s Loss to Tulsa Is Not the Loss Itself

This isn’t an overreaction to Oklahoma State’s hideous loss to Tulsa on Wednesday night in GIA. I’m not calling for Travis Ford’s head during the middle of the season or anything like that. It’s simply unfortunate for Ford that, despite being without his best player, Tulsa was the team that handed him just OSU’s sixth non-conference loss in GIA since I was two years old (1987).

Why Tulsa? Well, because you can sort of explain it away if it’s, say, North Texas or George Washington or somebody like that. When it’s the program in an inferior conference with inferior resources just 80 miles east of you in the same state, that’s stark.

The issue I had on Wednesday night wasn’t that Oklahoma State lost. Of course it lost. It was only a two-point favorite at home without its best player facing a team with nine seniors that just beat Wichita State. Did you think OSU would win that game? Did you think it wouldn’t at least be really close? Even Travis Ford was surprised it was a 10-point game.

“Give them credit, they’ve got a nice team,” said Ford. “Frank (Haith) has done a nice job with them. Tonight was their night, give them all the credit. We just didn’t have it tonight. We didn’t show up and we didn’t play very well. We hung in there for a while and I was surprised because we weren’t playing well.”

No, the problem runs much deeper than getting beat by TU in GIA.

The problem, as I outlined briefly last night, is that it didn’t feel like an upset. I didn’t walk away saying, “man, if we get ’em 10 times, we probably win nine of them. It was just one of those night!” No, I walked away saying, “yeah, Tulsa is better at basketball than we are.”

And if you can’t see why that’s an issue eight years into Travis Ford’s career, then I don’t know what to tell you.

The irony of Ford’s tenure in Stillwater is that he has an insane 10-year contract and he coaches and recruits like he has a one-year contract. That is to say, what has he built? He recruits like Charlie Weis did at Kansas. Get some JUCO guys, find some athletes and pray it all works out every single year. Well it has at times, but it’s never really felt sustainable. The pieces never quite all fit together. There was never a sense that he was constructing anything resembling a powerhouse. You get to have down years like this one if you go to Final Fours, but Travis Ford has one finish in the top half of the Big 12.

And now? You don’t even really have pieces.

Jawun Evans is nice. He’s a good player. He’d be a solid backup on a Big 12 title team. Phil Forte could start on a Big 12 title team but he’d be the third or fourth scorer. And OSU is asking them to pretty much do everything. Jeff Newberry is a good role player — OSU is asking him to start and score a lot. Same for Chris Olivier. Maybe Leyton Hammonds. Those are fringe rotation guys on a good team who are either starting or playing a lot.

It’s a frustrating thing to watch, and as long as Forte is sidelined, it might only get worse.

So no, the problem is not losing to Tulsa. Tulsa is a fun basketball program and has had a lot of good teams in the past. The problem for Travis Ford is that Wednesday night didn’t feel like an upset. Any time you lose a non-conference game in GIA, it should feel like the other team had the game of its existence. It should feel monumental. That wasn’t even remotely the case against Tulsa.

The problem for Travis Ford and his career at OSU is that he’s eight years deep and Tulsa might be the second-best basketball program in the state right now. And Oklahoma State might not even be third.