ESPN Hands Oklahoma State Passing Grade for 2024-25 Season

Oklahoma State didn’t take the spotlight, but it still had a season to be excited about.

OSU’s 2024-25 season marked the first of the Steve Lutz era and was one of the most interesting in recent years. While the Cowboys were never necessarily competitive at the top of the Big 12, they consistently made strides to be a competent middle-of-the-pack team, particularly succeeding inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.

Led by players such as Abou Ousmane and Bryce Thompson, the Cowboys managed to earn a spot in the NIT before falling to North Texas in the quarterfinals. Although not everything went the Cowboys’ way in 2025, they have plenty to be proud of.

Over the past few weeks, ESPN has been grading the performance of teams from each conference, with Myron Medcalf taking on the Big 12 recently. He gave the Cowboys a C grade for their 17-18 campaign. While a losing season might not seem like a passing grade, OSU made clear strides from its 12-20 season a year before under some tough circumstances.

As Lutz looks to build on his first season in Stillwater, it’s important to remember that many of his shortcomings in year one could be explained by a lackluster roster. Sure, the Cowboys had plenty of solid players, but a team full of solid role players simply isn’t enough to compete in the Big 12, and certainly not at a national level.

While Lutz obviously built that roster, he was also working with a shortened window, considering the lengthy period from when Mike Boynton was fired to when Lutz officially got the job. Many top transfers had already picked their new home, and the long wait in between coaches made it tough to persuade OSU’s portal entries to entertain a return to Stillwater after already exploring other options or already finding a new home entirely.

None of those problems existed in this offseason. The Cowboys found not only the solid role players that can fit in perfectly in Lutz’s system, but they also found stars, particularly high-volume scorers, who can carry the offense against stout Big 12 defenses and potentially raise the ceiling of a team that seems to have created a solid floor already.