Mike Boynton Updates the Program Following Dealing With COVID the Past Few Weeks

STILLWATER – It certainly hasn’t been the best past couple of weeks for Oklahoma State basketball. Following the 72-61 loss to No. 14 Houston down in Fort Worth, the game against USC was canceled due to COVID issues inside the Trojan program. Then, just a few days later, the Cowboys started to deal with COVID issues themselves, which forced the Big 12 opener against Texas Tech back to Jan. 13.

The Cowboys will now kick Big 12 play off at home against Kansas on Jan. 4 at 8 p.m. on ESPN.

On Wednesday, Mike Boynton went on his weekly radio show with Dave Hunziker to discuss the various goings on inside the program the past few weeks, including detailing everything that’s gone on with the COVID stoppage.

Instead of me trying to breakdown the near-five-minute segment, I’ve gone through and transcribed Boynton’s quote in its entirety. He also gives an update on center Moussa Cisse, who flew back to Africa earlier this month following the death of a close family member.

“It’s been quite a crazy couple of weeks. So, going into the Houston game, because we had played Cleveland State who knew had issues, post our game, there was some concern about what was going on more nationally because everybody's connected now. You know, Cleveland State goes from playing Canisius and Buffalo to playing us and then they were supposed to go to Duke and obviously you know, they’re crossing the country and coming into contact with a lot of different people.

“But long story short, we get to Friday before the Houston game, and we find out that the Colorado State-Tulsa game that was supposed to be played right before ours in Fort Worth was called off because of issues with COVID. And obviously that's led to some questions for our guys and their families about what's going on and are we going back [to Stillwater]. We, obviously, were able to get our game in [against Houston] and we didn't come out on the right end as we hoped, but then we left there and we were planning on going to Oklahoma City the next day to practice at Paycom [Center] and get ready for a game against Southern Cal on Tuesday, the 21st, it would have been. We got a call that Sunday morning from the people at Southern Cal saying that they had played the night before and had issues and were going through some testing and had some concerns about whether they should continue and subsequently their medical people and administrators had decided that it was probably best that they take a pause and kind of evaluate where they are and try to get back once they had everything cleared up.

“Well, that affected our game. So, Sunday, we learned that and then subsequently we had a couple players start to feel not great. So, you had some symptomatic people within our own program that we then needed to test, and we had our own issues and ultimately decided that we had to make sure that we were doing the right thing moving forward. You know, it came at a peculiar time for us because it was right before Christmas break. And we ended up having several players have to stay here in Stillwater and not go home and see their families for Christmas which is really unfortunate. But some of them had to fly home and we didn't certainly feel like it was smart, or safe, or probably legal maybe even at this point to put them on an airplane.

“We kept them here; my wife and I, who fortunately has been able to stay pretty healthy ourselves, just kind of continued to monitor them and take them food every now and then and check on them every day and make sure that parents knew what was going on and why they wouldn't be coming home for Christmas.

“Here we are coming back and still dealing with some lingering issues within the program here, so we just weren't able to field enough guys for practice to get ready to play a game this close to where we are now. So, we're working back. I think the day we got back, well they were supposed to be back the 26th, if we had to practice that day, we would have somehow wind up doing it two-on-two, because we had four non-injured, non-COVID affected bodies. So, we pushed it a day and we got back here to 27th and we had those four guys, plus one more. So, we have five and we started to work on some individual stuff and then I guess that would have been Monday. Tuesday [the 28th], we had three more join us but still not all healthy bodies, a couple of guys who came back from injuries.

“On top of that, you know we’re still dealing with Moussa [Cisse’s] situation. And just to bring everybody up to speed, Moussa had a very close member of his family pass away the day of the Cleveland State game and subsequently flew back to Guinea on the 15th of December. And we’re obviously concerned about visa status and, you know, COVID restrictions in terms of international travel, but now he's actually working his way back into the country now; we think everything's gonna go smoothly and then we'll be able to work him back in practice. So, we had a lot of different issues we were dealing with, but I think, you know, by and large, we're coming through it and in probably as good a shape as we could. I don't know what that looks like from a basketball standpoint, but everybody will be safe and healthy, and we'll get back to work.”

While we certainly don’t know who all was affected by COVID over the past few weeks, coach Boynton said nearly half of the basketball program, players, coaches and staff included, were affected.

“I’ll say this: I think we had a total of 18 positive tests on our initial group testing, which was alarming because that’s a significant number on a basketball party,” said coach Boynton. “We’re not talking about 175 people in your travel party and staff and all that, we’re talking 35-40 people. So, the fortunate part is many had symptoms, but they were very mild. So, you’re talking maybe a sore throat, maybe some congestion. Maybe some headaches and some fever. No one [was] ill to the point where they had to go to the ER, although we were close on two people having to do that. So, it was a little touch-and-go for a couple of days, then subsequently, it kind of rode itself out. So, that was the positive of it, but still scary because this is stuff we’re still learning about. I think we did the right thing by calling the [Big 12] and telling them ‘Hey, we’ve got some issue we need to monitor here.’ Subsequently, I think we’re getting everybody back, but one thing I’ll say is, the guys that are working back that have been able to come back as of [Dec. 29], in which we’re up to like nine bodies; not all scholarship, not all non-injury, but fatigue’s been a real factor for the guys that are working themselves back because I certainly imagine this is having an effect on their respiratory system and their cardiovascular ability. So, it’s taking a little bit longer for those guys to kind of get back into the groove of things having been basically isolated, for many of them, 10 days already.”