OSU Basketball Picked to Finish Last in Big 12 for Second Straight Season

Oklahoma State was picked last season, for the first time ever, to finish last in the Big 12 standings by league coaches. That same preseason poll again has the Cowboys pegged as a cellar-dweller in 2018-19 behind Baylor, OU and Texas Tech.

Kansas, Kansas State and West Virginia finished 1-2-3 in the poll, with the Sunflower State programs garnering all available first-place votes.

2018-19 #Big12MBB Preseason Poll. Who've you got? ? pic.twitter.com/QtDef49kvX

— Big 12 Conference (@Big12Conference) October 19, 2018

Last season new coach Mike Boynton used the projection as motivation for his team entering the season, and OSU performed better than expected. Though the Pokes finished second-to-last in the final standings, they had a 8-10 conference record shared with Baylor, Texas and OU, and just missed the NCAA Tournament.

2018-19 may be different, however. The Cowboys lost their top three scorers and four of their top five from a season again, namely Jeff Carroll and Kendall Smith, and have replaced the production with mostly youngsters. The steady-handed presence of Cam McGriff should help overall, but Boynton has overhauled the roster out of necessity with eight newcomers who didn’t play last season but will likely be a major part of the squad in ’18-’19.

Boynton met with the media on Thursday and expressed excitement about the upcoming season, though he did note that, as of now, he’s not comfortable naming a starting five.

“I am certainly excited for the season being here,” said Boynton. “I’m excited to see our guys go out there and do the one thing that I can’t do for them: start to gain some experience. I can put them through a lot of drills and teach them how things are going to happen, but when they go out there for the first time and get knocked over, I can’t do that for them.

“I love the group. I think they have potential long-term, but we’re at a phase where this is a team that will look much different from last year’s team due to experience. But we feel like they’re the right type of kids that we want to build the program with.”