Tulsa World: Restoring glory

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Restoring glory

First-year OSU coach Travis Ford will try to return the Cowboys to the NCAA Tournament. The Cowboys haven't been to the Big Dance since 2005. MICHAEL WYKE/Tulsa World

By JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer
Published: 11/2/2008 4:37 AM
Last Modified: 11/2/2008 4:42 AM

Audio: Listen to a Q&A with Travis Ford during OSU’s media day last week.

Ford, Cowboys eye return to NCAA Tournament

STILLWATER — You wonder about the inheritance of new Oklahoma State basketball coach Travis Ford.

The previous coaching regime left him two McDonald's All-Americans. Returning are players who scored all but 10 of the Cowboys' points in an upset of national champion Kansas last season.

Nice.

On the other hand, Ford inherited seniors who are 0-3 in NIT games. Ford, during a team meeting, asked every player who has participated in an NCAA Tournament game to raise a hand. No hand was raised. For the first time since 1990, OSU enters a season with zero NCAA Tournament veterans.

Uh-oh.

"It's interesting," Ford said, noting that his team is picked anywhere from fifth to eighth in preseason Big 12 polls.

"What that means is people don't know. There are a lot of unknowns there."

This much is known: Ford specializes in restorations. He spruced up sagging programs at the NAIA (Campbellsville, Ky.) and NCAA (Eastern Kentucky, Massachusetts) levels in previous coaching stops.

Now he's being asked to tune up a limo. OSU went to 13 NCAA Tournaments in a 15-year span, but the last trip was 2005. With the rowdiest arena in the country at his disposal, can Ford transform his inheritance into gold?

Former Kentucky athletic director C.M. Newton, who recommended Ford for the job last April, said, "If you have ever been to Campbellsville, Kentucky, if you can rebuild that basketball program and recruit there, then you are a genius."

If Ford was really a genius, he would invent a time machine and jump one year into the future. He said he would love to have this exact OSU team a year from now because he is going to spend much of his inaugural season teaching players a new system.

Ford said he would like to redshirt seniors Byron Eaton and Terrel Harris, but that's not going to happen because going to the NCAA Tournament is an immediate goal.

"If we are going to do that, we are going to have to be overachievers," Ford said.

"We are not going to beat people just with talent. That's not going to happen. We have some good players, yes. But there are much more talented players in our league. There are much more talented teams in our league. And that is not a knock on our team. We can still compete with those people because we have good enough talent."

Ford indicated the Cowboys will be better equipped to compete if players do all the "intangible" things.

That statement apparently covers a lot of territory. Ford said the Cowboys have to come together as a team and develop chemistry. He said players have to believe in each other, refrain from griping at each other and avoid getting a "loser's mentality."

Ford also talked about the importance of being in shape, eating properly and getting plenty of rest.

"Let everybody else go out and do (the opposite)," Ford said. "Hopefully they will be staying up all night. We're going to need those advantages. We don't have that great of talent to stay up all night and eat at McDonald's every day or whatever it is."

Ford often urges players to "get you some game." Eaton indicated that must be Ford's favorite saying because it is uttered every day.

Said Eaton, "He tells everybody on the team 'get you some game.' You can just be out there doing layups and he is going to say 'get you some game.'"

Ford has got game. He was on the Big Eight's all-freshman team at Missouri in 1989 and transferred to Kentucky after the Tigers landed on NCAA probation. He was an All-SEC player each of his last two seasons and was MVP of the NCAA Tournament's Southeast Region in 1993.

"Every Kentucky player has name recognition in the state of Kentucky," said Campbellsville coach and former Ford assistant Keith Adkins. "The more successful ones, it's almost legendary status that you gain. Travis was the point guard on a Final Four team. He was the MVP of the SEC Tournament twice."

Both adults in the Ford household are ex-UK athletes. Ford's wife, Heather, is a former swimmer, so she was an interested TV viewer when Michael Phelps splashed his way into history. Ford likes to kid his wife that swimming is just a hobby. "She gets really upset," he said.

But Ford also praises his wife for juggling real-life issues (like moving, buying a new house and selling an old one) so he can focus on coaching, recruiting and spending time with their three kids. Life has been a blur since he inherited the Cowboys.

"As far as what they accomplished in the past and all that, I really don't pay a whole lot of attention to that," he said. "We've got a long way to go if we are going to compete with the elite teams in our league right now, but we've got enough players to do that if a lot of things come together."

Jimmie Tramel 581-8389
jimmie.tramel@tulsaworld.com By JIMMIE TRAMEL World Sports Writer

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