By JIMMIE TRAMEL Sports Writer on Apr 11, 2012, at 5:15 PM Updated on 4/11 at 5:15 PM
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Today is the first day of the spring signing period. Oklahoma State basketball coach Travis Ford isn’t expected to sign any new Cowboys this week (he signed three in the fall).
But, sometime before next season begins, he would like to find this: An identity for his team.
“One thing we didn’t do a very good job of the past two years is forming an identity with our basketball team,” Ford said during a season wrap-up chat with writers who cover the team.
Ford said he was disappointed in himself for failing to establish an identity with his last two squads (one went to the NIT, the other suffered OSU’s first losing season in 24 years).
“But I am committing myself to we will have an identity of who we are as a basketball team,” he said. “When you come watch us play, you are going to know who you are watching, period. I have already told my coaches I didn’t feel that we had the identity we needed to have. And there are different reasons for that.”
Win or lose, Ford said he wants the Cowboys to play in such a way that it will define “who we are.”
“I had pretty much had done that my whole career except for the past two years,” he said. “We had it in our minds, but something either derailed it or something happened and we just got to the point where we were trying to win games instead of playing to our identity.”
Asked to elaborate, Ford said he thought last season’s team would be able to “play a lot faster and press a little bit more and things like that.” But he said chemistry -- so good off the court -- didn’t translate when players shared a court. And he said it was tough to develop better chemistry because the schedule was too difficult.
“We just didn’t have guys really taking hold of positions or playing as well as we thought some guys would play and things like that,” Ford added.
“It just never came together like we thought it would and I wasn’t patient enough with it (in regard to) just sticking with it. That happens when you start losing a little bit. We’re going to change that. That’s not going to happen. We’re going to have an identity and our players are going to understand who we are and that’s how we are going to play.”
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