JimBob
12-01-2007, 07:10 AM
OSU to host Huskies
By JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer
12/1/2007
Sean Sutton has been a head coach for 40 games -- 50 if you want to count an interim stint at the end of the 2005-06 season. Because he is a coach's son, he has been around basketball all his life. There aren't many hoops-related predicaments he hasn't seen, including his current one.
Oklahoma State, which faces the Washington Huskies in an ESPN-televised Saturday home game, is off to a 2-3 start and was dealt double-digit defeats by Marquette and Illinois at the EA Sports Maui Invitational.
"People tend to overreact and panic," Sutton said. "But I have seen a lot of our really good teams in the past get off to bad starts and in fact some of our best teams struggled early."
Sutton referenced the 1995 Final Four team, which lost two of its first three games by double digit margins and was beaten four times before league play began.
The year before that, OSU also suffered four pre-league defeats.
Early in the 1998-99 season, the Cowboys lost a home game to Florida Atlantic and followed that with a poor performance against UCLA.
"My point is we have had several seasons where we got out of the gate slow and it's just a process that takes time and the only way to get better is to get out on the practice court and work every day," Sutton said.
Sutton views the game against Washington as a test to see how much his players have improved since Maui. He said the advantage of playing a tough nonconference schedule is your weaknesses get exposed.
OSU was turnover-prone and shot poorly in Maui. The Cowboys had defensive lapses. They were also out-toughed, failing to mount legitimate comeback attempts after falling behind against Marquette and Illinois.
"I think the biggest thing is we've got to get where we are tougher," Sutton said. "Just because we are young, there is no excuse. You can still be tough."
Sutton said he staged hard, physical practices in recent days. He believes conditioning lapsed because the Cowboys had just one full-bore practice before a pre-Maui trip to North Texas. Sutton didn't want to wear out the Cowboys, who played three games in three days during the Hawaii trip.
Washington is 4-2 with losses to Texas A&M and Syracuse.
By JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer
12/1/2007
Sean Sutton has been a head coach for 40 games -- 50 if you want to count an interim stint at the end of the 2005-06 season. Because he is a coach's son, he has been around basketball all his life. There aren't many hoops-related predicaments he hasn't seen, including his current one.
Oklahoma State, which faces the Washington Huskies in an ESPN-televised Saturday home game, is off to a 2-3 start and was dealt double-digit defeats by Marquette and Illinois at the EA Sports Maui Invitational.
"People tend to overreact and panic," Sutton said. "But I have seen a lot of our really good teams in the past get off to bad starts and in fact some of our best teams struggled early."
Sutton referenced the 1995 Final Four team, which lost two of its first three games by double digit margins and was beaten four times before league play began.
The year before that, OSU also suffered four pre-league defeats.
Early in the 1998-99 season, the Cowboys lost a home game to Florida Atlantic and followed that with a poor performance against UCLA.
"My point is we have had several seasons where we got out of the gate slow and it's just a process that takes time and the only way to get better is to get out on the practice court and work every day," Sutton said.
Sutton views the game against Washington as a test to see how much his players have improved since Maui. He said the advantage of playing a tough nonconference schedule is your weaknesses get exposed.
OSU was turnover-prone and shot poorly in Maui. The Cowboys had defensive lapses. They were also out-toughed, failing to mount legitimate comeback attempts after falling behind against Marquette and Illinois.
"I think the biggest thing is we've got to get where we are tougher," Sutton said. "Just because we are young, there is no excuse. You can still be tough."
Sutton said he staged hard, physical practices in recent days. He believes conditioning lapsed because the Cowboys had just one full-bore practice before a pre-Maui trip to North Texas. Sutton didn't want to wear out the Cowboys, who played three games in three days during the Hawaii trip.
Washington is 4-2 with losses to Texas A&M and Syracuse.