The new Cowboy head coach doesn’t see his lengthy tenure as an assistant as a bad thing. Quite the opposite.

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STILLWATER — Steve Lutz spent 26 seasons as an assistant coach in college basketball, which means he should’ve coached at about 15 or 18 places.

That’s because college basketball assistants, on average, only stay in one place for a year or two before moving on.

But that wasn’t Lutz.

He was an assistant at only six schools, and while he had one a short stay — he spent just one season at Garden City Community College in Kansas — the rest of his stints were long by most standards. Four seasons at Incarnate Word in San Antonio. Six at Stephen F. Austin. Four at SMU. Seven at Creighton. Four at Purdue.

Two of his shortest stays — two seasons at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and one at Western Kentucky — were as a head coach.

“Western Kentucky, I was there for a year, and I hated that because the people there were fantastic to me,” Lutz said. “It’s a great program. 

“But when you get an opportunity to come to Oklahoma State, you have to take it.”

Lutz, of course, is the new head coach of the Cowboys, announced officially on Monday by the school and celebrated publicly on Thursday at Gallagher-Iba Arena. While OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg made it clear Lutz’s performance as a head coach was paramount — Weiberg’s first criteria was someone who’d been a head coach, his second was someone who’d been successful as one — Lutz says he would have been neither a head coach nor a successful one if not for his years as an assistant.

Those experiences shaped who he is today.

“I was extremely blessed and fortunate,” he said Thursday. “But with that being said, I always was very careful with choosing my jobs because I always wanted to be with people of high character and obviously be with good coaches because I always wanted to learn.”

Lutz aligned himself with good coaches. Just look at his last three stops alone.

Matt Doherty, SMU.

Greg McDermott, Creighton.

Matt Painter, Purdue.

All of that resonated with Weiberg.

“He paid his dues and saw all levels of basketball in the process, right? Including Creighton and Purdue, which are two of the better programs in the country right now,” Weiberg said. “I think it was the totality of all of that, added up together. 

“I felt like obviously (he) was a good basketball coach, had seen a lot of things, been around a lot of people, had a lot of connections and contacts.”

If we’re an average of the people we spend time with, that bodes well for Lutz. 

“I don’t know that I could tell you exactly what I took from each one of them,” he admitted, “but I mean, obviously, I’ve stolen, like every coach, has from each and every one of them. You know, we talk a lot about Matt Painter and Greg McDermott. But I mean, Matt Doherty was national coach of the year when he’s at (North) Carolina. 

“So you just try to take the things that they do and do well that fits your personality and take those with you. … And then those things that maybe were better for their personality, or maybe they felt like you should play a lot of zone and you’re not a zone person, you just leave that behind.”

The pace at which Lutz wants his teams to play, for example, is much higher than Painter or McDermott. Best-case scenario, Lutz wants a shot in the first 12 seconds of the shot clock. Don’t force a bad shot, but don’t let the defense get set either.

The result: Western Kentucky ranked first nationally this season with 75.3 possessions per 40 minutes.

Painter’s Purdue ranks 180th with 68.4.

McDermott’s Creighton ranks 228th with 67.6.

(Before Lutz arrived at Western Kentucky, the Hilltoppers ranked 177th with 67.9 possessions per 40 minutes. He transformed the way they played, and he didn’t need long to do it.)

Though Lutz has instituted a style of play unique to him, he learned to handle what happens behind the scenes from some of the best. How to manage a program. How to recruit and retain. How to rally support. 

You know he saw those qualities and more at Creighton and Purdue because the two men leading those programs have been there for a combined 33 seasons. 

The Boilermakers, of course, are in the Final Four.

Head coaches don’t stay in one place for more than a decade without taking care of under-the-hood maintenance. Even the most successful head coaches can wear out their welcomes if they aren’t good managers. 

Painter and McDermott haven’t had such issues, and Lutz rode shotgun with those two for a combined decade-plus.

“It’s like a master’s class in coaching when you work for such good coaches,” Lutz said. 

New OSU basketball coach Steve Lutz knows the value of hard work, and hard work is what’s needed to revive a moribund Cowboy basketball program.

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“I’ve always been very calculated with the jobs that we’ve taken.”

Learning and growing wasn’t the only factor. 

“I always prioritize my family in choosing any job,” he said. “For example, last year, I never moved my family to Kentucky. I allowed my daughter (McKenna) to make a decision if she wanted to stay and finish her senior year in Texas so that it wouldn’t be her third high school. 

“Because at the end of the day, it’s more important for me to have a long-lasting and loving relationship with my family and my daughter than to move her across the country and have her be angry at me.” 

He smiled a bit.

“Especially with 17-, 18-year-old girls.”

Truth be told, family was also one of the reasons Lutz felt it was the right time to go from assistant to head coach. He left Purdue for the head coaching job at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in 2022 with his oldest daughter, Caroline, getting ready to graduate from high school.

“And my mom was ill, and she was declining,” said Lutz, who grew up in San Antonio, only about two hours from Corpus Christi. “So it allowed me to get back and be around my family and be with my mom for the last two years of her life. 

“It just was great timing.”

It’s easy to think Lutz must have been frustrated somewhere in those 26 seasons as an assistant. Wasn’t he chomping at the bit to become a head coach? Wasn’t he disappointed it took so long for that opportunity?

Perhaps. But he sure sounds like a grow-where-you’re-planted type of guy.

“I’ve always tried to take jobs with the thought process that I would be there forever,” he said. “Unfortunately as coaches, you’re not allowed to be there forever. But when the opportunity for myself and my family came to advance, I’ve always taken it if it was the right opportunity.”

It’s why he became a head coach three years ago.

Why he became the OSU head coach, too.

“When you’re in coaching, at some point, you have to bet on yourself,” he said. “And I tell this to young coaches all the time: you have to bet on yourself, and then you have to go be able to prove it.”

That’s what Steve Lutz hopes to do at OSU, betting on himself and all those formative seasons he spent as an assistant.