Oh, for a do-over in San Antone

OSU basketball fans probably think about San Antonio quite a bit. Four years ago this week, the Cowboys went to the Final Four and lost a two-point heartbreaker to Georgia Tech, which was an inferior team but playing very well.

That was a different Final Four defeat than in 1995. In ’95, the Cowboys were nine-loss team that got hot at the end and zipped to the Final Four, where they lost a good, competitive game to eventual national champ UCLA. Those Cowboys went about as far as they reasonably could have gone.

Not so in 2004. The ’04 Cowboys were a splendid team. A powerhouse team. Lost three games, then made the Final Four playing as high of seeds as possible: 15 Eastern Washington, 7 Memphis, 3 Pitt and 1 Saint Joseph’s. Then they didn’t play well against Georgia Tech.

But something else went wrong in San Antonio. Eddie Sutton didn’t retire. Looking back, how the fortunes of the Sutton family would have been enhanced had Eddie chosen to make the Alamodome his swan song. Had Eddie decided to retire on the heels of a fabulous, Final Four season.

Two major developments that would have occurred had Eddie retired then:

1. The drunk-driving incident would not have shamed Sutton or his family. Sean would have been head coach, Eddie would have been in the background (or maybe have taken another job, like he eventually did), but either way, his OSU legacy would have been unspoiled. Maybe Eddie’s drinking would not have developed the way it did; we certainly know that continuing to coach the Cowboys did not go well.