Travis Ford Says He Still Hasn’t Thought About Being Fired

Travis Ford kissed two of his makeshift starters on Wednesday night as they exited the makeshift press conference after Ford and Co. got bounced from the Big 12 Tournament in the first round for the first time ever. Kissed them.

Watch.

Travis Ford with an emotional goodbye to Tyree Griffin & Jeffrey Carroll during their press conference. #OKState pic.twitter.com/TgIbemV2H3

— Nate Feken (@TheGreat_Nate) March 10, 2016

Ford clearly loves his dudes and they clearly love him back. He also claimed he hasn’t thought about the future or about being fired.

“I’m more worried about my basketball team right now, more worried about that right now. There will be a time and place for [making the case for my return next year]. I’m just proud of these guys right now, and I worry about my players, as I always do. We’re about trying to keep their spirits up and haven’t gave much thought to [my job status] at this point.

He explained why he hasn’t thought about it.

“People have asked me about it, and they don’t understand the life I live,” said Ford. “They don’t understand — they are not around me enough to know my mindset of how I work. I immerse myself into trying to figure out how to help this team every way possible …”

It’s something he said last week as well after losing to Texas at home.

Travis Ford on this possibly being his last home game: "Didn't cross my mind." #okstate

— Mark Cooper (@mark_cooperjr) March 5, 2016

He continued talking about his team on Wednesday.

“As I told them, in a crazy way, you know, I’ve enjoyed the challenge of this last couple of weeks. I really have. You know, had long, long nights trying to figure it out. Because every day we’ve been trying to figure out what team we’re going to coach, who’s going to be ready (laughter). And these guys have made it fun. Made it fun. If you like challenges in life, then there is not a bigger one than we have been facing.”

I’m not sure about that last part — homeless and terminal illness seem like pretty adverse things. But I get what he’s saying.

“They learned so many life lessons,” said Ford. “There’s going to be a lot of adversity in people’s lives, whether it be jobs, marriage, whatever it maybe, you will find it. But if they handle adversity the way they did this season, good things will happen for them. Because never did they make excuses and they went out and played hard and got prepared for the next game, when all the odds were against us, and they got prepared for the next game.

“I said through all — these guys showed so much more maturity than other people, it’s unbelievable. I told them they should be proud of that, should so much maturity through that.”

Good on Ford for not making it about him at the very end. Maybe he knows what’s coming and when it’s going to happen and finds it fruitless to defend himself, maybe not. But he took the opportunity to prop up a bunch of kids when it would have been pretty easy to make it all about him and his tenuous future as the head coach at Oklahoma State.