STILLWATER – There’s no denying the fact that the 2021-22 season for Oklahoma State was a rough one, and I don’t mean where they finished in the win/loss column, though that’s certainly a factor.
Obviously, before the start of the season the NCAA levied its punishment on Cowboy basketball, which included a one-year postseason ban due to Lamont Evans’ role in the nation-wide scandal a few years back.
The Cowboys, who were coming off a trip to the second round of the NCAA tournament in 2020-21, was primed to make another run at the tournament. As things played out, the Cowboys finished the year 15-15 overall and 8-10 in Big 12 play.
There’s been some grumblings most of the season about players wanting to leave the program via the transfer portal because they were unhappy with their situation this past year. Less than 72 hours after the Pokes’ final game of the season, sophomore guard Donovan Williams was the first player to enter his name in the portal. Williams played in just 15 games over two season and averaged 3.1 points and 1.6 rebounds in nine games this season.
“I’m prepared for whatever happens,” Boynton said. “…I don’t want to get ahead of anybody’s news, good or bad. I think there will be some really positive news, but I think there will probably be some unfortunate situations as well. My job is to make sure the people in that office up there are doing the necessary things to be prepared for whatever happens. I don’t expect to have 12 new faces, but if we have to have 12 new faces, we’ll try to have 12 really good new faces.”
However, on the other side of things, the transfer portal has been quite good to Mike Boynton and Co. through the years. They added Kendall Smith prior to the 2017 season and three players who helped lead the Pokes this year in Bryce Williams, Tyreek Smith and Moussa Cisse, the last of which led the Big 12 in blocks and was tabbed a Big 12 Co-Defensive Player of the Year.
Boynton told the media on Wednesday that he’s had preliminary talks with Cisse about him returning for next year. While he’s not necessarily a threat to transfer due to him having transferred to Oklahoma State, with Cisse entering his name into the NBA Draft process prior to arriving in Stillwater last year, there’s always the chance he’ll do so again this offseason to see what his chances are at a pro career.
“Kids need time to decompress,” Boynton said. “[Moussa’s] 19 years old; he doesn’t need to make a big decision about what can affect his entire life without really sitting back and giving it some thought, and I feel that way about the portal. Kids should be allowed to do whatever they want, but they should have the opportunity to step away from the emotion of the moment and really talk to people who can really kind of help them decipher whether it’s real that they need a new start or that they just don’t like how things are going right now.
“We have had preliminary conversations,” Boynton continued about Cisse’s future. “We talked about how this process needs to go. At the end of the day, he’ll make the decision that he feels is in his best interest for his future, but I feel like we did have a positive conversation initially.”
No matter how things play out with the current roster, Boynton was very clear on needing to add shooters and a point guard through either transfers or high school players. The Cowboys shot less than 30% from 3-point range this past season, the worst percentage in the Big 12.
I think you missed my point.... I am not opposed to transfers... I am opposed to losing valuable members of your team for coaching reasons, and then having to go to any means to try and fix it.backphil said:
Texas Tech was a transfer portal team. That is the wave of the future, apparently. So, if he needs a point guard and outside shooting, he does not have that on the current team. We have some really good defensive players. We don not have any really good offensive players. So coach needs to keep his best defensive players (Cisse, Walker, Anderson, etc) and leave room for some portal offensive players.
