Sean Sutton came as close to being a head coach as any assistant could when he worked for his father.
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He still didn't know everything about being the main man.
Late this season, though, the Oklahoma State men's basketball coach looked like he might be getting it figured out. His Cowboys looked better. So did he.
But now, Sutton is out. He came to a mutual agreement with OSU athletic director Mike Holder on Monday to resign, less than 23 months after officially taking over the reins in Stillwater.
It's too soon.
These past two seasons have been disappointments for lots of reasons.
No NCAA Tournament bids. Off-court troubles. Empty Gallagher-Iba seats.
Still, there were signs as this past season went on that Sutton was figuring things out.
No doubt the last few years coaching under his legendary father, Sutton learned tons. He watched how Eddie Sutton worked, how he handled problems, how he dealt with alumni and administrators. He also headed up the recruiting and the offensive game planning.
When the younger Sutton became the OSU head coach in May 2006, he was as prepared as any assistant could be to make that leap. He still couldn't know all the potholes and the pitfalls.
No one does until the sign on the big office has their name on it.
And for the better part of two seasons, Sutton floundered. He looked ill-prepared to coach, and many nights, his teams looked just as sickly.
Then when conference play started this season, the Cowboys turned a corner. They started playing better, and even though that didn't equate to wins until February — their first six losses in Big 12 play were by an average of 5.0 points — this was an improved team.
Credit the players, but credit Sutton, too.
He looked more and more like a head coach as the season went on. He seemed to have better command of the huddle and the players. Granted, Sutton is never going to be Mr. Smooth. He sweats. He snarls. But you don't have to be a GQ cover boy to be a good basketball coach.
Sutton looked like he might be growing into one of those, and he might very well get there one day soon.
It just won't be at OSU.
That sets a dangerous precedent for every other coach in Stillwater, not to mention the coach who replaces Sutton. Had he been given even one more year and still struggled, then going a different direction would've been understandable.
Instead, Sutton is being booted just when he seemed to be getting his feet on the ground.
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I think firing Sean was a mistake, but when I read some of the counter-factual comments by Sean-backers I get embarrassed. Gary, Sean's recruiting class last year included 2 juco players. The incoming class has one high school kid and one juco kid, and another juco kid was on campus last week. Marcus, just how much hard-nosed man defense have we been playing lately? Sean has played a lot of zone, and aside from Dove very little of any defense we have tried has been "hard-nosed". Zach, if you were not embarrassed by our double-digit loss to a 4 seed in the NIT playing without their starting point guard, what would embarrass you?!? If SIU was such a tough draw, why weren't they playing in Madison Square Garden. And Jenni, if you are going to cite our 5 game "streak", please aacknowledge we lost 4 of our last 5, including to OU without their franchise player at home. These were games that Sutton had to kno w his job was on the line. All that said, I think Sean would have learned from all his mistakes and eventually turned it around. But please stop ignoring the inconvenient facts when making a case for him.
It saysT Boone is serious and is looking for winners. Sean is a good person but not necessarily a winner. He had his chance everything was supposed to be in place for him to succeed. The result was no progress. No progress next year and all may lose their jobs, so Holder did what he had to. It may not be fair, but who promises fair. Do you want a winning team or a nice team? Quit feeling cheated and embrace the opportunity. The future could be exciting. It will at least be more interesting now. Good move.
I agree the firing was 1 year premature. He should have been given another year with the young talent he recruited. I liked the fact he was getting freshmen vs juco players. Good Luck Sean. You are, and will be again, a winner!
This firing was premature. It was a show of disloyalty by the OSU administration. Even John Blake got a 3rd year, and I'm pretty sure that he won less than 57% of his games.
One irony of this is that if Scott Sutton at ORU was Scott Smith or Scott Jones or anything other than Sutton, he would at least receive serious consideration, given the success he has had there. No chance of that now, though.
Thanks to all the fans who have supported me. I will be at Joes tonight and my dad and I would like to tip a few back with everyone who wants to come. I will pick up the tab with the money I got on my buyout.
Jenni, your last paragraph is right on. The next coach, whoever it is will come in with 3 things on his mind. 1- Making Mike and Boone happy, (winning at any cost). 2- Not making Mike and Boone mad at him, (not loosing by too much). 3- Lasting more than 2 years on a 5 year contract. BB at OSU will change forever. Gone will be the tough hard nosed man to man defense the program was built on by Mr. Iba and revived by Eddie to be replaced by a zone defense just hoping not to loose by too much. Gone will be the discipline of if you make a mistake on the court, you sit down for a few minutes and if you make a mistake off the court, you might sit on another bench. In will come the thugs. Might as well call it OU north, (lol to my Sooner faithful!)
Football has historically had little success. Name the coaches who have gone to a bowl in two of their first three years at OSU, none-the-less won them. You cannot compare college football to college basketball. Basketball had been highly successful in the last decade in a half. If football had been to a BCS game in the five years before Gundy and then he came along and went 18-19, he would be out to. When was the last time a team was a nine seed in the Big 12 tournament and then came back and challenged for a conference title the next year? The basketball program is in bad shape, blame it on coaching, blame it on players, blame it on what Eddie did, but Sean was making 3/4 of a million a year and there was zero return on investment for the university. Remember a coach named Quinn Snyder, great assistant, Duke/Coach K bloodline, new his X's and O's......you think Mizzou was glad they held onto him as long as they did? Last I checked they still haven't recovered from that one. I guess if they would have given him another year he would of figured it out though......
Zack from Perkins..You're the Joke, not Holder. Sean Sutton spent 2 years and accomplished NOTHING. Giving him another year would be a waste of time. OSU didn't improve in the last of the season, either. In case I'm wrong, they lost again in the first round of the NIT, which is the tournament of losers. It's not like he had to rebuild a program that was in the tank, or anything. Reading excuses like yours makes me want to PUKE.
Mike Holder is a massive hypocrite. Head Football coach Mike Gundy's won-loss percentage is far worse than Sean Sutton's and he does not fear for his job. Sean should have at least been given a third year and T. Boone needs to stop calling all shots in Stillwater. If Sean Sutton is expected to "Stand on his own two feet" then so should Holder.
It's a shame. The guys didn't win so many games towards the end of the year including A&M in College Station and Kansas and challenging Texas every time they met and they didn't get embarrassed against the Salukis. That was possibly the hardest draw of the NIT. SIU is great at home. OSU had everything coming back, and no reason to hold anything against Sutton. One more year and this team could have been ont of the Top 4 teams in the Big 12 next season. Mike Holder needs to step down from his position. He's killing OSU tradition. He gives a football coach who's moving in the wrong direction an extension and then fires a basketball coach that's going in the right direction. Raises football prices to sell more season tickets, but did nothing about basketball at a basketball school. The guy's a joke of an athletic director. He should have been fired, not Sutton. And he'll realize that when he can't find a good coach and when Sutton blows OSU out when they meet his new team.
I am a OSU graduate and feel that Sean should have been given at least one more year to pull it together personally and also on the court. The Sutton family bank account has put a lot of deposits in the OSU basketball
bank and I feel that Sean had at least one more year of withdrawals before Mike Holder should have closed the Sutton family accout
What about the OU loss on your home court without Blake Griffin? That should have been a gimme game after the "great run" but Sean was totally outcoached. Glad Jenni thought Sean was figuring it out. OSU is not a place to figure it out. Go to VMI or Rice or Georgia Southern or San Francisco to figure it out.
Jenni, OSU is setting a "dangerous precedent", if you're a SOONER. Sean had a golden opportunity and coulden't get the job done. Gone are the good old days when Cowboy athletics was based on scratching out a few wins and building character. OSU has an Athletic Director that expects excellence and has the deep pockets to make it happen. This will send Mike Gundy a signal in day glow orange that if the football team doesn't win, bad things will happen!
Very few schools these days can afford to fire a coach after only two seasons. I don't always agree with how Jenni Carlson puts her opinion into the public spectacle, but she isn't a bad analyst. We now hate Les Miles, but Les Miles is a product of this same attitude. Win in an extremely short period of time or get out. The big 12 was probably the most dominant conference in college basketball this season. It sent six teams to the dance. 5 of those 6 won their first round game. UCLA, the undoubted top team in the pac-10, barely beat A&M a middle of the pack,not-playing-any-better-than OSU at the end of the season team in the big 12. Getting to .500 when you are just figuring things out is extremely difficult. Sean was 14-18 in his first two seasons in the big 12. That's not a Colorado cellar dwelling record. To expect anything more next season is ridiculous. A good mid-major coach can go to a team like Texas Tech, A&M, K-State, Missouri, Arkansas etc. where he can earn just as much money and have equal opportunities at success but he won't have these sorts of demands put on him. We didn't pay Sean that much. We pay Gundy almost double what Sean made. A fast rising coach that doesn't care if he gets fired in two years is not the sort of coach we want. That is the "Bobby Petrino" mentality. He will have no loyalty. This is a dark day for the orange faithful.
Robert, you honestly really have no clue what you are talking about. As a student during the "Sutton" era I still know students that are friends with players. There are no off-court issues that you don't know about other than Sean was stressed because he had no administrative support. Byron Eaton, Marcus Dove, Kenny Cooper, Obi Muonelo all loved Sean. In fact Eaton said he had elevated his play and wanted to keep doing so to make sure Sean kept his job. The truth will come out that Holder is a money grubbing moron that cares nothing for loyalty.
Jenni, if you think Sutton was finally coming into his own as a head coach, that is your opinion, but don't try to pin it as fact. There are many variables that determine whether a coach should be retained or let go. Sean had some things right, but the negatives outweighed the positives. It wasn't working and as painful as it is, it was time for a change.
No one wants to throw Sean under the bus, Holder is fair game? There are significant off the court issues with Sean that no one wants to talk about. I'm sorry, but Sean left Holder no choice in the matter. The truth will eventually come to light.
The OSU supporters wants to run with the big dogs and they will bite anyone they perceive as stopping them. They should find their niche in life and cool out.
Jenni's right! But the other dangerous precedent is that a coach who may achieve great success in a two to three year span will have no loyalty. What coach would after seeing Sean Sutton give a great portion of his life to his school and be shown the door in two years!
It's funny how everybody forgets that Sean ulitmately had to dismiss 4 starters or potential starters in his first year and then the injuries on the squad last year which wouldn't even allow 5 on 5 proactices. Then there is the current year missing 60% of the team's scoring leave with two starters leaving prior to the start of the school year. Let's face it, he didn't have one "typical" season to coach without major handicaps.
He was thanked for years of loyalty between he and his father by getting flushed! Frankly, Holder needs to be under careful examination. Raising stadium ticket prices with falling attendance doesn't sound like a recipe for success or happy alums. I don't think Holder's recent action regarding Sean Sutton could be called a smart move either.
I'm a little confused here. Can anyone explain to me how coaching 6 or so individuals on the golf 'team' compares with coaching basketball or football teams. Holder may be the best thing that every happened to OSU sports, (personnally I don't see it)but can we really use the golf team as the reason?
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bank and I feel that Sean had at least one more year of withdrawals before Mike Holder should have closed the Sutton family accout
Robert, you honestly really have no clue what you are talking about. As a student during the "Sutton" era I still know students that are friends with players. There are no off-court issues that you don't know about other than Sean was stressed because he had no administrative support. Byron Eaton, Marcus Dove, Kenny Cooper, Obi Muonelo all loved Sean. In fact Eaton said he had elevated his play and wanted to keep doing so to make sure Sean kept his job. The truth will come out that Holder is a money grubbing moron that cares nothing for loyalty.
It's funny how everybody forgets that Sean ulitmately had to dismiss 4 starters or potential starters in his first year and then the injuries on the squad last year which wouldn't even allow 5 on 5 proactices. Then there is the current year missing 60% of the team's scoring leave with two starters leaving prior to the start of the school year. Let's face it, he didn't have one "typical" season to coach without major handicaps.
He was thanked for years of loyalty between he and his father by getting flushed! Frankly, Holder needs to be under careful examination. Raising stadium ticket prices with falling attendance doesn't sound like a recipe for success or happy alums. I don't think Holder's recent action regarding Sean Sutton could be called a smart move either.