Travis Ford Has Been Fired by Oklahoma State

On Friday, Travis Ford was fired by Mike Holder and Oklahoma State. Ford’s final eight-year record at OSU was 155-111 including a 1-5 NCAA Tournament record and 63-75 in the Big 12 regular season.

BREAKING: Oklahoma State and Travis Ford parting ways. Story to come. #okstate

— John Helsley (@jjhelsley) March 18, 2016

Here’s the official release:

Oklahoma State Director of Athletics Mike Holder and basketball coach Travis Ford have mutually agreed that the school and Ford will part ways.

“I like Travis Ford and his family,” Holder said. “He worked very hard at his job. Unfortunately, we have to move on.”

Time as #okstate head coach …

Eddie: 5,923 days
Travis: 2,889 days (so far)
Sean: 641 days

— Pistols Firing (@pistolsguys) March 14, 2016

There is obviously much to discuss here as the future of the program is ambiguous (to say the least). But for now, I wish Ford the best at wherever he ends up and thank him for the good memories. This was a move Mike Holder had to make. It was his only move, and I think everyone (including Ford) knew it for most of the season.

Ford’s mini legacy to me (off the top of my head) is somebody who collected good stars and bad role players and got them to play as hard as any team in the league. In the end, that never meshed that well other than Marcus Smart’s freshman year. But he gave a crap, embraced OSU history and emptied the tank. Despite the failure, I’m not sure how much I can ask for from the head coach at Oklahoma State.

Last time this happened in 2008, Holder fired Sean Sutton on April 1 and hired Ford on April 16. I would actually be surprised if it took that long this time. Holder has known this was coming if not all year then at least all semester and has had time to plan accordingly.

I think we all know where my sentiment lies. We won’t go there quite yet, but we will talk a lot over the next few days about what introducing Doug Gottlieb as just the fourth Oklahoma State head basketball coach since 1990 would mean to the Oklahoma State family, its students and the future of the Cowboys program.