Potential 2021 NCAA Tournament sleeper Oklahoma State hit with postseason ban

Back in mid-March after the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the coronavirus pandemic, we wrote a lookahead story for the 2021 Big Dance on potential Final Four sleeper team Oklahoma State. The Cowboys back then were +5000 on the moneyline odds to win the national title despite finishing 18-14 overall in 2019-20 and 7-11 in the Big 12. However, now Coach Mike Boynton's Pokes will not even play in next year's NCAA Tournament.

The reasoning in March was that Oklahoma State welcomed the nation's top 2020 recruit in Cade Cunningham, the first-ever OSU recruit to win the Naismith High School Player of the Year Trophy. Cunningham is projected as a potential No. 1 overall pick in the 2021 NBA Draft.

CBS Sports recently ranked the Top 15 incoming freshmen for the 2020-21 season and Cunningham was at the top: "He has the perfect blend of passing, scoring and defensive abilities that should vault the Cowboys from the fringes of the tournament picture to a darkhorse title contender in the Big 12 and beyond."

Cunningham may never play a second for Oklahoma State with the news Friday that the men's basketball program has been banned from postseason play for a year due to NCAA violations.

The punishment stems from an FBI probe that found former OSU assistant Lamont Evans accepted bribes to link players with bribe-paying managers and financial advisers from April 2016-September 2017 (also while at South Carolina). Evans was one of 10 men charged in the federal government's investigation. He was hired at the school by former coach Brad Underwood (not involved in probe), who is currently at Illinois.

Oklahoma State is the first program in the country – and it won't be the last – to be punished by the NCAA's Committee on Infractions as a result of the FBI's probe into recruiting. OSU also received other penalties, including three years of probation and scholarship reductions.

While the school will appeal, it frankly makes little sense for Cunningham to play college basketball at this point and instead head to the G-League to get paid a few hundred thousand dollars just like fellow heralded Class of 2020 recruits Jalen Green, Isaiah Todd and Daishen Nix have done.