Brad Underwood tries to block out K-State ties before first game against Wildcats

Brad Underwood is in no mood for small talk.

Not while the Cowboys are stuck in a losing streak and in last place. Be advised: This is not the time to greet Oklahoma State’s basketball coach with the words, “Hello, how are you?”

“If you can imagine what it’s like to be 0-5,” Underwood replies, “you have a pretty good idea of how I am right now.”

This is uncharted territory for Underwood. Before the start of the Big 12 schedule, he had never lost more than three consecutive games. At Stephen F. Austin, where he got his start as a Division I head coach after spending years with Kansas State and South Carolina as an assistant, he won so often (89-14) that he tied Butler’s Brad Stevens for the most victories in the first three years of a coaching career.

He lost back-to-back games twice.

That success carried him to Stillwater, where he started equally hot by beating Connecticut, Georgetown and Wichita State on his way to a 10-2 nonconference record. Phil Forte and Jawun Evans picked up where they left off, and Jeffrey Carroll emerged as a scoring threat.

But nothing has gone right since. The Cowboys have lost all five of their conference games and are in desperate need of a victory Wednesday against Kansas State at Gallagher-Iba Arena.

Under better circumstances, perhaps this would be a nostalgic game for Underwood, a McPherson native who played at K-State from 1984-86 and returned as an assistant from 2006-12.

This will be his first time coaching against his alma mater.

“It will be a different feeling, I’m not going to lie,” Underwood said. “I have always cheered for them. I’m a fan. Kansas State will always be my alma mater and I am always going to pull for them. But it’s not about me. It’s about the players in uniform and I am going to try to keep it that way.

“I’m not going to try to make this game about anything more than it is. K-State could very easily be undefeated right now. They are a very good basketball team and we have to find a way to beat them. That’s all it comes down to. I’m going to keep it very generic.”

Coaching against his alma mater and his mentor (Bob Huggins at West Virginia) were among the few drawbacks for Underwood when he was hired at Oklahoma State last March. He says it isn’t fun to coach against friends and doing so multiple times a year will take some getting used to.

But he’s got larger concerns at the moment.

Oklahoma State was in position to win each of its past four games, dropping all by 10 or less points. The Cowboys, coming off a 12-20 season under Travis Ford, don’t know how to close out games.

“We aren’t that far away from being 4-2 or 3-2,” Underwood said. “We have been very inconsistent on the defensive end. That has been one of the things I am the most frustrated with. We have shown we can score. We are capable of that, and yet we are trying to establish a culture based on toughness and work and grit. That’s something we have had at times, but we need a lot more of it.”

The search for toughness begins in the locker room.

Some teams might view a 61-57 loss at No. 6 Baylor or an 87-80 loss at No. 2 Kansas as moral victories, performances to be proud of even in defeat. Underwood doesn’t look at any defeat through optimistic lenses, and he wants the Cowboys to reach that point.

“That’s the one thing I have really had to fight,” Underwood said. “I want to make sure these players know that losing isn’t acceptable. Losing in a game you are tied with 2 minutes, 30 seconds to go or down one is not acceptable, and we have had that a few weeks in a row.

“It is not acceptable. I don’t ever want them walking out of a locker room feeling good about themselves after a loss. I want them to be (angry). That is a mentality we are fighting to create every single day.”

Underwood is confident that will happen in time.

For now, he’s focused on ending Oklahoma State’s losing streak.

“We have got to learn how to make winning plays,” Underwood said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do before we get there.”

This story was originally published January 17, 2017 at 12:09 PM with the headline "Brad Underwood tries to block out K-State ties before first game against Wildcats."