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Oklahoma State Basketball

Oklahoma State Lands Kansas Transfer Bryce Thompson

May 13, 2021
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STILLWATER – It’s a big day for Oklahoma State basketball as former five-star Booker T. Washington guard and KU transfer, Bryce Thompson, announced his commitment to the Cowboys.

Thompson is the third commit of the 2021 class for Boynton and Co., all of which are D1 transfers. He joins Syracuse transfer forward Woody Newton and fellow Big 12 player Tyreek Smith, a transfer forward out of Texas Tech.

Thompson, who appeared in just 20 games last season for the Jayhawks, entered the transfer portal on April 13 following his freshman season which was plagued with injuries. He suffered a back injury early in the season, then broke his finger in the game against Oklahoma State in Stillwater, which happened to be his first game back from his back injury.

In those 20 games, which included four starts, Thompson averaged 4.6 points, 1.5 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 17.1 minutes per game.

Mike Boynton and Co. were among the final four schools to land the Booker T. Thompson standout, along with Kansas, North Carolina and Oklahoma. It’s no secret Boynton pursued Thompson about as hard as any prospect he’s gone after since taking over the program in 2017, which includes going to see Thompson at midnight as soon as the fall recruiting period opened in 2019.

While he didn’t have the greatest of freshman seasons, Thompson brings a lot of talent to Stillwater. The highest rated prospect out of Oklahoma in the past 10 years, Thompson averaged 24.6 points, 5.9 rebounds and 2.8 assists a game his senior season, as well as 19.6 points, 5.2 assists and 4.5 rebounds a game and a 6A state championship his junior season. He was named the Gatorade Oklahoma Boys Player of the Year following both of those seasons.

This is a huge pick up for Boynton and Co. as Thompson will go a long way in helping replace the production lost with the departure of star freshman Cade Cunningham. Assuming he stays healthy, Thompson brings great depth and scoring to the guard position and should be a solid one-two punch alongside Avery Anderson.

Discussion from...

Oklahoma State Lands Kansas Transfer Bryce Thompson

6,733 Views | 32 Replies | Last: 2 yr ago by Theecolonel
CanadianCowboy
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I think it's Pistols Firing in Stillwater! It's good to get an Oklahoma blue chip back to Oklahoma, and even better that he's going to be at O-State. Looking forward to Thompson getting into the fold at GIA, finding his niche in the legacy of of Iba and Sutton with the coaching of Boynton
TUSKAPOKE
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CONGRATS TO ALL INVOLVED!!! GO POKES!!!
Theecolonel
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Yee HAw
USA First!!!!
Joe Khatib
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Sometimes things just take a while for it to all work out in favor of the Good Guys. Go Pokes, Go Brice Thompson.
CaliforniaCowboy
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so who sits? ICE or Thompson?

nevermind.... I see he's considered a shooting guard, and listed at 6'5"

We need a shooter, I hope he can shoot.... not many stats to look at from his KU stinit.

CaliforniaCowboy
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so to recap...... we lost Cade, Flowers, and Pena's right?

and we added 3 transfers to the mix.... so now we have no scholarships available, and it's unknown whether we'll lose a ship to probation.

Is that where we're at?

SiliconPrairie
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I believe we still have one available, assuming we win our appeal. The walk-on Dee Mitchell was given a scholarship for last year, but that isn't necessarily guaranteed for the coming year.

There is also the question of whether Bryce Williams returns for a super-senior season, but if I understand correctly, his scholarship would not count toward the limit of 13.
CaliforniaCowboy
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SiliconPrairie said:

I believe we still have one available, assuming we win our appeal. The walk-on Dee Mitchell was given a scholarship for last year, but that isn't necessarily guaranteed for the coming year.

There is also the question of whether Bryce Williams returns for a super-senior season, but if I understand correctly, his scholarship would not count toward the limit of 13.
I'm almost certain that Mitchell was given Pena's scholarship, when that became available.

I have no idea about Williams and the impact on the 13-ship limit. Your post is the first time that I've even seen that mentioned as a possibility.

SiliconPrairie
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This article refers to fall sports, like football. I think the same rule was extended to Basketball and other winter sports, but Google didn't immediately bring up an article that confirmed that.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/10/14/ncaa-winter-sports-extra-eligibility/

"For fall sports, seniors who return for an extra season during the 2021-22 academic year will not count toward the team's scholarship limit. However, in the years that follow, schools cannot exceed the limit, even though athletes on the team still would be allowed extra eligibility. In those cases, if schools choose to let athletes use their extra season of eligibility, it would effectively take away that scholarship from incoming recruits. The Division I Council's announcement did not specify whether those same rules would be applied for winter sports."
SiliconPrairie
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As I understand the rule, all athletes were given 2020 as a free year. Whether the athlete chose to compete, or not, the season would not count against their four years of eligibility.

In addition to that, the NCAA passed another rule that athletes who were seniors in 2020 could return to play in 2021 and those returning seniors would not count against the team's scholarship limit. However, that rule only applies for one year. In 2022, all teams must return to the normal scholarship limits.

Also, the schools are not required to provide scholarships to all seniors who wish to return. But, I saw an interview with Josh Holiday before the baseball season started and he said that OSU administration had stepped up and guaranteed the extra scholarships for all seniors who wished to return. This was in reference to the baseball team, so I know the rule applied to them.
SiliconPrairie
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Here is an article that discusses how the super-senior eligibility rule applies to basketball.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/sports/aztecs/story/2020-10-14/san-diego-state-sdsu-aztecs-basketball-ncaa-extra-year-of-eligibility-new-transfer-rule

"In other words, if you have 13 basketball players on scholarship and three seniors stay for their extra year, you still get three additional scholarships for 2021-22. If a senior transfers to another school for that extra season, he or she counts against the allotted scholarship limit (which is 13 for men's basketball)."
SiliconPrairie
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By my count, here is the scholarship situation for next year. Since 2020-21 didn't count against eligibility, all players will remain in the same classification as this year.

1 Senior — scholarship will not count toward limit:
Bryce Williams

1 Junior — still has 2 years eligibility:
Isaac Likekele

5 Sophomores — still have 3 years eligibility:
Avery Anderson III
Kalib Boone
Keylan Boone
Chris Harris Jr.
Bernard Kouma

3 Freshmen — still have 4 years eligibility:
Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe
Rondel Walker
Donovan Williams

3 Transfers — all Freshmen, 4 years eligibility:
Woody Newton
Tyreek Smith
Bryce Thompson

An interesting point here is that Coach Boynton has received some criticism on the message boards for not signing any high school recruits in 2021. However, since all of the incoming transfers still have four years of eligibility, it was just like signing high school recruits, except we get three players with a year of college experience. Maybe Coach Boynton knows what he is doing after all.
CaliforniaCowboy
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excellent... thanks for the research and effort

Theecolonel
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Thank you sir!!!
USA First!!!!
CowboyKip
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Silicon,

Thanks for the work! Coach has 11 players now with 3+ years of eligibility. Barring transfers there won't be a lot of recruiting for the next couple of years. Then you have to replace almost the entire team. I hope we find a way to even things out.

CowboyKip
CaliforniaCowboy
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CowboyKip said:

Silicon,

Thanks for the work! Coach has 11 players now with 3+ years of eligibility. Barring transfers there won't be a lot of recruiting for the next couple of years. Then you have to replace almost the entire team. I hope we find a way to even things out.

CowboyKip
one thing that Coach B does consistently is burn through the players.

If Anderson does well then he's likely gone, he tested the waters this year, etc.

I hope we can find a way to keep kids here... the rest will take care of itself, IMO.
SiliconPrairie
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Well, at least we didn't have any kicked off the team this year for misconduct. I hope that trend continues. Now that Coach B. has a solid core of good players, maybe he can focus on character, as well as basketball skill.

No one really expected Cade to stay for more than one year. The down side of recruiting 5-star players is that some of them won't stay for four years. How many players has Kentucky "burned through" since Calipari became their head coach? It seems he has made a career out of signing one-and-done players.
CaliforniaCowboy
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chuckle, chuckle.... I wasn't referring to the 3 kicked off the team.... (Jones, Calloo, Weathers)

2020 Cade, Flavors, Pena (who never really panned out)
2019 Hidde Roessink, Yor Anei,
2018 Curtis Jones, Duncan Demuth
2017 Brandon Averette, Lucas N'Guessan, Sima Yankuba

That's at least 11 kids in 4 years, NOT counting the 3 knuckleheads with the pellet gun, and not too many Kentucky 1-n-done types either.




Theecolonel
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And we didn't really miss any of them!! Get er done!!!
USA First!!!!
CaliforniaCowboy
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Theecolonel said:

And we didn't really miss any of them!! Get er done!!!
actually, IMHO, we really, really missed Yor Anei... for one... and a couple of others were solid players - Calloo ate our freaking lunch in the tournament, and he was taller at PF than any centers we had on the roster.

we could have used several of those bigs, as opposed to what we have.... 6'9" Boone and newbie Karuth.

there is a whole lot to be said about some stability...
SiliconPrairie
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Averette and N'Guessan both came in with Underwood. I'm pretty sure Averette was committed to Stephen F Austin and flipped to OSU when Underwood was hired here.

N'Guessan, Sima, and Roessink all fall into the category of "big-man projects" and you are right, they never panned out. But, for as long as I can remember, OSU has had trouble finding quality big men.

Yor Anei was a good contributor as a sophomore last year. I think it would have been better for him if he could have had a redshirt year, but we needed him on the floor both years he was here. Unfortunately, Yor decided to transfer during the summer after the NCAA sanctions were announced. Blame that on Boynton, if you like, but I actually think Coach B. did a fabulous job keeping most of the team and all of the new recruits on board. It's just a shame we lost Anei, because he could have been a big help to this team in 2021.

As for Flavors, he was a grad transfer and was never expected to be here beyond this year. He would have exhausted his eligibility, except for the NCAA granting an extra year to all players. Still, it's true Flavors wasn't as big a contributor as we might have hoped.
CaliforniaCowboy
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naw..... Boynton came in with Underwood... and then Boynton recruited those kids.... and they were on the 2017 roster that I looked at.

I'm really sick of folks claiming that Boynton had to do this or do that with somebody else's players... they were HIS players, he was on staff... and ever other new coach had to also deal with "somebody else's players", and all of them did a much, much better job of it than Coach B.

burn and churn.... 3/year average..... your guess is as good as mine who they will be next year (Donovan Williams, Anderson, and one of the new transfers - that's my guess)

SiliconPrairie
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We weren't talking about what Boynton did, or didn't do, with somebody else's players. We were talking about players that transferred out. There are lots of reasons why players transfer. That's the point I was trying to make, although I may not have expressed it very well.

If you get this worked up about player transfers, you had better buckle your seatbelt, because we just entered the era of unrestricted one-time transfers. From now on, 17-year-old kids can commit and play at one school, and if they don't get everything they want, just transfer somewhere else without any penalty.

One could argue that Boynton was pretty smart to only recruit transfers this year, because all of our incoming players have already used their free one-time transfer.
Theecolonel
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CaliforniaCowboy said:

naw..... Boynton came in with Underwood... and then Boynton recruited those kids.... and they were on the 2017 roster that I looked at.

I'm really sick of folks claiming that Boynton had to do this or do that with somebody else's players... they were HIS players, he was on staff... and ever other new coach had to also deal with "somebody else's players", and all of them did a much, much better job of it than Coach B.

burn and churn.... 3/year average..... your guess is as good as mine who they will be next year (Walker, Anderson, and one of the new transfers - that's my guess)


Do you even like OSU or are you an OU troll?
USA First!!!!
CaliforniaCowboy
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I'm just saying revolving door.... from day 1.

we'll have plenty of room for new recruits next year.

CaliforniaCowboy
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Theecolonel said:


Do you even like OSU or are you an OU troll?
please stick to the topic and leave me out of it. It has nothing to do with me.

Thanks.

SiliconPrairie
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This has been a good discussion...no need to get personal. I'm going to have to sign off for tonight though. I have a bunch of work to do.
Theecolonel
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OSU First!!!
USA First!!!!
Theecolonel
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What do you do with a poster that bedowngrades OSU all the time? Mods?
CanadianCowboy
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I don't know what you are talking about this "bedowngrades" stuff. But I do know what we do with posters that troll other posters. Again, you've been warned for the last time. Be nice or be gone
Theecolonel
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Sorry we disagree on things, I still think somone is a troll....I didn't name him this time...is that better.
Theecolonel
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And bedowngrades is from Gundy....the MAN himself.
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