OSU Basketball Left Out of NCAA Tournament in ESPN's First 2025 Bracketology

Oklahoma State has a new coach and new hope for next season, but it might not be enough.

This offseason, OSU men’s basketball has had an abundance of changes. After firing seven-year coach Mike Boynton and hiring Steve Lutz, the Cowboys’ roster has undergone dramatic differences.

In the transfer portal, OSU has signed numerous potential contributors next season, including NCAA steals leader Arturo Dean and Brandon Newman, who followed Lutz from Western Kentucky. However, those players have taken the spots of outgoing Cowboys.

OSU’s mass exodus began after Boynton’s firing, with star freshman Brandon Garrison going to Kentucky, leading scorer Javon Small going to West Virginia and freshman forward Eric Dailey Jr. signing with UCLA. With a few other role players heading elsewhere this offseason, continuity will be nearly nonexistent for OSU in 2024-25. The Cowboys will still have some returning players, including Bryce Thompson, who is going into his fourth season as a Cowboy. 

Although the Cowboys are unrecognizable compared to their 12-20 campaign last season, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi believes those changes are not enough to get them into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2021. In Lunardi’s early 2025 Bracketology, the Big 12 is slated to be one of the nation’s toughest conferences, and OSU is on the outside looking in.

Although OSU is not projected to be in the tournament, nine of the Big 12’s 16 teams are in the field. That does not meet the SEC’s 10 members, but OSU’s conference does include the top overall seed in Kansas and another No. 1 seed in Houston.

While making the NCAA Tournament is the Cowboys’ goal for next season, competing in the Big 12 and finishing with a winning record would be steps in the right direction for a team that has been near the bottom of the Big 12 for much of the past decade.