Stillwater, Okla. ? Oklahoma State’s Sean Sutton is a coach fighting to keep his job, but he’s not fighting alone. He has a good ally in Byron Eaton, the Cowboy’s 5-foot-11 junior point guard out of Dallas.
Eaton helped Sutton’s cause by leading his team to a 61-60 victory against Kansas University with 26 points and four assists. Then, afterward, he helped his coach’s fight for survival with words.
“I’ve been hearing things that coach is out at the end of the season, and I don’t want that to happen,” Eaton said. “I’m going to try to do whatever I can for my coach to stay here and for me to have a great senior year. If it happens, it happens, but I’m going to fight for my coach.”
Sophomore guard Obi Muonelo, who hit a trio of three-pointers and scored 12 points, also helped his coach during and after the game.
“I don’t think he’s going to be out at the end of the year,” Muonelo said. “When I hear that, it goes in one ear and out the other. Our losses have nothing to do with his coaching. It’s us. Y’all see how good of a coach he really is when we decide to play the way we can play. … He can recruit, and he’s a good coach all the way around. When I hear those rumors, I don’t even listen to them.”
Sutton’s defensive decisions contributed to Kansas playing at a slower pace than it desired. The Cowboys consistently got back on defense. In the half-court, OSU did less trapping, so as to avoid getting burned by big men rolling to the basket. The Cowboys played some sagging man-to-man and some 2-3 zone.
“We slowed them down a little with that zone press and with playing zone defense (in the halfcourt), which we really haven’t done a lot,” Sutton said. “That shows the respect I have for how gifted they are at the offensive end and how explosive they can be. I don’t think that you can line up and try to play them man-to-man for 40 minutes and expect to win. So we did our best to keep them off balance.”
The Cowboys (14-12 overall, 5-7 Big 12) went from having a nine-point lead with less than 10 minutes left to a four-point deficit with less than three minutes remaining, thanks to sloppy play.
“I told them we didn’t come this far just to wilt at the end,” Sutton said. “We’ve got to rise up and fight. This is where we’ve got to be tough and fight and rise up, and I thought they did that.”
The upset did not change Sutton’s mind about what he believes Kansas is capable of accomplishing next month.
“If I had to pick one team to win it all, I’d pick that team that we just played against because I think they’ve got great balance,” Sutton said. “They play great defense. They’re unselfish. They’ve got really good chemistry. They’re well coached. They play hard. They’ve got all the ingredients it takes to get to the Final Four and to win the national championship. Knowing that, and knowing how I feel about Kansas, that win ought to help our players’ confidence.”
