Is OSU's Steve Lutz Inching Closer to Hot Seat for 2026-27 Season?

The Cowboys have found no real success under their second-year head coach.

Oklahoma State coach Steve Lutz watches during a men's college basketball game between the Oklahoma State Cowboys and the Kansas Jayhawks at Gallagher-Iba Arena in Stillwater, Okla., Wednesday, Feb. 18, 2026. | BRYAN TERRY/THE OKLAHOMAN / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Oklahoma State has had yet another disappointing season on the basketball court, and time may already be running out for the Cowboys’ recent hire.

In the 2024 offseason, OSU brought in Steve Lutz to try to turn the program around following Mike Boynton’s seven seasons, which featured only one NCAA Tournament appearance. While there was no pressure for Lutz to get the Cowboys back to being some Big 12 contender or even make the tournament in year one, pressure has ramped up a bit in year two, and there aren’t any improved results to show for it.

The Cowboys have again failed to make any noise against Big 12 competition and are limping their way into the conference tournament, where a first-round exit seems likely once again. While Lutz had a quick turnaround in his first season in terms of constructing a roster, he had plenty of time to put together his ideal squad in the 2025 offseason, but his transfer class hasn’t panned out whatsoever for the Pokes, who sit at 5-11 in Big 12 play going into their final two regular season games.

In a recent article from CBS Sports’ Matt Norlander, he put together a list of the power conference coaches who could be on the hot seat as the season comes to a close. The Big 12 had three names on the list in Arizona State’s Bobby Hurley, Cincinnati’s Wes Miller and Colorado’s Tad Boyle.

Those names make sense given the state of each program, with Norlander assigning varying degrees of hotness to those seats. Unsurprisingly, Lutz didn’t end up in the article for this offseason, but there’s a clear case to be made that he could be at the top of that list in 2027 if things in Stillwater don’t turn around quickly.

Sure, OSU is still 17-12 going into its final matchups of the regular season, but finding success against an incredibly weak nonconference schedule shouldn’t be the peak of the Cowboys’ season. With so much potential promise going into the Big 12 slate, OSU has fallen flat against some of the top competition in the country, a staple of the program for the past decade.

OSU wasn’t quick to fire Boynton, but there was at least some legitimate optimism in the program throughout the early parts of his tenure, with the 2018 team narrowly missing the tournament and Cade Cunningham’s commitment in 2019 giving the program a clear path to success.

Nothing of the sort has happened early under Lutz, and if he’s unable to find success against Big 12 competition again next season, he might just be one of the names Norlander lists around this time in 2027.