NCAA Basketball oklahoma state Cowboys

The debate about which conference is the best basketball league usually heats up in December.

But the Big 12 coaches set fire to the debate early by staking claim as the best basketball conference Tuesday, some five months before the 2009-10 season begins. So the Big East, ACC, Pac-10 and SEC will have to just lineup for second best.

"I do think it's going to be the best with what we have retuning and the things that we've done in the last few years," Texas A&M coach Mark Turgeon said during the Big 12 summer teleconference call Tuesday. "I've talked to some so-called experts out there and they think we are going to be the best league, too.

Who's in? Who's out? Find out as FanHouse takes a look at teams somewhere between in NCAA or NIT.

Team: Oklahoma State Cowboys

Record: 20-9 (9-6 Big 12)

Good Wins: Rhode Island (Oklahoma City), Texas, Kansas State and at Nebraska

Bad Losses: At Baylor

At historic Gallagher-Iba Arena, they named the court after Eddie Sutton -- the former player and coach. His signature reprinted large across the court in his honor. Well, the relationship between Eddie and Oklahoma State has been strained for some time, and got a little worse when T. Boone Pickens the Cowboys fired Sean Sutton after only two years on the job.

Well with a change in coaches and a need to paint a new 3-point line on the court, Oklahoma State decided it was time for a makeover to Eddie Sutton Court. The new court -- pictured above -- has a much smaller imprint of Eddie Sutton.

The new court was selected by fans and students from eight design choices. In five of the choices Sutton's replica signature was completely removed, with only a printed version of his name on the court. In the other three, the signature was severely reduced.

It's hard not to see that some sort of animosity remains between the Oklahoma State athletic department and the Sutton clan. Forget the dramatically scaled down signature. Over half of the choices offered completely removed Sutton's signature from "his" court.

The Big 12's gain is the loss for a lot of college sports fans.

"After 36 years, 23 Final Fours, all 10 Bowl Championship Series title games and a half-dozen laptops, I'm done," he writes.

"I will begin working as a writer/blogger for the Big 12 Conference web site (so I'll need laptop No. 7). The Big 12 wants its web site to convey information about its schools in both video and story form. I'll be somewhat involved with the former and heavily involved with the latter. It's a great opportunity that I'm lucky to have considering the death spiral of major newspapers."

Barnhouse had been the national college football and basketball writer/columnist for the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. Barnhouse's national reach, reputation and popularity grew as the internet allowed more readers access. His columns were considered required reading by many college sports fans. Barnhouse was also one of the few national college sports writers at a newspaper. Not at a national paper, magazine or TV/internet operation.

The Star-Telegram benefited from his reputation, but the actual value to the paper was low. The national following added little to their subscription base. This led the paper to decide to eliminate the national college beat. Offering Barnhouse the choice of a buyout or assuming role of Texas A&M beat writer. As Barnhouse wrote, "Nothing against the Aggies, but it was clearly time to bail out."

Travis Ford is leaving UMass to take the head-coaching job at Oklahoma State, ESPN's Doug Gottlieb is reporting:

That's an awfully quick change of mind for Ford, who less than a week ago said he was sticking with UMass. But Oklahoma State has the backing of billionaire T. Boone Pickens, which means the Cowboys can give coaches financial offers that make the six-figure deals of UMass look like chump change.

Ford, who previously turned down LSU, reportedly will meet with his players today to tell them he's leaving. Ford has a 62-35 record in three seasons at UMass and led them to a loss in the NIT title game this year. He replaces Sean Sutton, who resigned after failing to reach the NCAA tournament in 2007 and 2008.

The deep pockets of T. Boone Pickens and the desire to return to his alma mater weren't enough to convince Bill Self to leave the school where he's won the national championship.

Self, whose Kansas Jayhawks won the national championship on Monday, has announced he will not go to Oklahoma State and will be back at Kansas next season.

Ordinarily, it wouldn't even be an issue: Kansas just won the national championship and is a better program than Oklahoma State. Why would Self even think of leaving? But Oklahoma State is no ordinary school.

For one thing, it's the school that Self and his wife attended, and it's closer to his family than Kansas. There could have been personal reasons for him to head to Stillwater. And perhaps more importantly, there's Pickens, the billionaire who practically owns the Oklahoma State athletic department and opens up his wallet any time he thinks he can improve it. He would have made Self by far the highest-paid coach in college basketball history.

As it is, Self will turn down a few million but still be highly paid with a new contract and a pay raise at Kansas. Jayhawks Athletic Director Lew Perkins says the details of a new contract for Self "will be finalized in the next few weeks."

Said Self at his news conference today, "I don't know what the big deal is. ... There was never serious interest in leaving the University of Kansas. " Well, coach, the big deal is that you're the most sought-after coach in college basketball, and you're staying put.

If there was a dark lining to the silver cloud that's parked over Lawrence, Kansas this week, it's the possibility that Bill Self could take a massive offer from another Big 12 school and leave the Jayhawks. If rumors are true, Oklahoma State wants to make him a fabulously wealthy man as opposed to merely the wealthy man he is today. He's an OSU alum and money is money so it wouldn't be a surprise if he jumped ship.

After saying a move could happen in a postgame interview Monday, Self addressed the situation again yesterday. He said he was "positively not interested" in the Oklahoma State job but then turned around and said that he was sure he'd be meeting with Kansas soon to "iron things out." He's certainly mastered playing both sides of the fence and even managed to make it seem like the money didn't matter.

"What I'd like to have is like everybody'd like to have. I'd like to have some security. I don't know what even Kansas would remotely be talking (about). We haven't even talked about that. When I say security, I mean years, so hopefully that'll happen."

Here's the thing, Kansas gave him a five-year extension before this season. That's an awful lot of security.

When Oklahoma State forced the resignation of Sean Sutton, he still had 3 years left on his contract at $750,000 per year ($2.25 million total). The school, even with the deep pockets of T. Boone Pickens, really didn't want to have to pay that much each year to Sutton while paying for a new coach. Instead they reached an extended settlement.

Sutton will get $2.7 million over the next 10 years. He'll get $300,000 this month, and then starting in July he gets $20,000 per month for the 10 year period.

Unlike a lot of agreements, he gets the money regardless of whether he takes another job or not. Usually, there is some agreement to offset part of the money when a coach takes another job. Sean Sutton gets this regardless of whether he takes an assistant coaching job or another head coaching job.

Unsurprisingly, there is also a clause for both parties not to speak ill of the other.

According to the settlement document, OSU ''agrees to make no adverse comments or disparaging remarks . . . about Sean P. Sutton.'' And Sutton, ''for himself and members of his immediate family, similarly agrees to make no adverse comments or disparaging remarks (about OSU).''

Eddie Sutton, Sean Sutton's father who coached at OSU from 1990 to 2006, is not defined in the settlement as a member of Sean Sutton's ''immediate family.''

Eddie Sutton, is obviously not very happy about the firing of his son. Even to the point where he is at least making noise about not being sure he wants his name to remain on the court at Gallagher-Iba Arena (though, that just seems like some posturing).

Bob Knight has been great on ESPN. Not because he's lost his cool at any point on the ESPN set. (darn). No, he's been great because he has been refreshingly candid about things. On the day of the NCAA Tournament Championship, the rumors of Oklahoma State pursuing Bill Self were everywhere. The discussion turned to how it should be handled.

Bob Knight compared it to the situation in the 1996 Superbowl with Bill Parcells, the New England Patriots and the New York Jets job. He had the simple and effective suggestion. Lie about it. (Plus, I just get a kick out of Knight calling the Patriots, "Pay-tree-aughts.")



There is no good way to handle it. If he admitted he would listen, it would just be a mess in Lawrence. If he turned Oklahoma State down, cold; he loses bargaining leverage with Kansas on his raise. Plus, no one knows just how interested he is in the job or not.

The rumored numbers that Oklahoma State-T. Boone Pickens are wiling to offer Bill Self to come home to Stillwater are eye-popping. A $6 million signing bonus in addition to a $4 million per year salary. You have to imagine that at that point, the Cowboys would probably throw in whatever it takes to buy out his Kansas contract as well.

Bill Self is doing what is expected at this point. Trying to deflect all the questions that have swirled around him and the Oklahoma State job since Sean Sutton was fired. There was no secret that Pickens and Oklahoma State were targeting Self -- an Oklahoma State graduate.

There is no question that Kansas is the better job. From a historic perspective, it is probably one of the 5 most storied and "name" college basketball programs out there (no particular order -- Kentucky, UNC, UCLA and Indiana). Recruits want to come there, and the talent is rarely in question. Oklahoma State is a good program with nice history, but not near Kansas.

On the other side, Self is an alum. The money is the kind that Kansas cannot and will not match that kind of money, according the Kansas Athletic Director Lew Perkins. Self has shown he can coach, win, and recruit anywhere. It's how he finally landed the Kansas job.

The talent he had assembled at Illinois, especially, showed that he could recruit the talent to compete for a national championship at a program comparable to Oklahoma State. Whether he could do that every year like at Kansas may be a different issue.