Boynton on Hoops Portal Process, Not a Marathon or Sprint, Maybe a Mile
STILLWATER – Monday was a reminder that the NCAA Transfer Portal can strike in the most unexpected places with the most unexpected players at the most unexpected times.
Iowa State under first-year head coach T.J. Otzelberger went to the “sweet 16” in March Madness and had a monster turnaround season with freshman Tyrese Hunter helping lead the way with his 11 points and 4.9 assists a game. That assists average was third in the Big 12 and both numbers broke freshman records at Iowa State.
Okay, maybe this was what Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton was talking about over the weekend when he preached patience when it comes to navigating the NCAA Transfer Portal
“When it’s a process-oriented deal, like recruiting is, you’ve got to do the best you can to be as diligent and as thorough as possible,” Boynton said to reporters including Tulsa World’s Eli Lederman,
Boynton, his staff, and the team participated in the 5K in the Remember the Ten Run on Saturday.
“The portal can be tricky,” Boynton went on to say. “It’s like fishing in the ocean. You can get anything. Seaweed. A nice bass. It may not be your deal. It may not fit what you have. We got Moussa (Cisse) in July last year. We got (Bryce Thompson), I think, in May. Sometimes patience is a little bit more necessary than just trying to fill (your roster) with the first guy you see.”
The numbers back Boynton up as a tweet by basketball media guru Jeff Goodman Tuesday reported 1,418 players in the portal. Of those, 158 are walk-ons and 19 players have withdrawn making a grand total of 1,241 scholarship basketball players in the portal.
My gosh, there are only about 4,500 scholarship basketball players in Division I, so that means over 25 percent of them are in the transfer portal.
Oklahoma State had guard Donovan Williams jump in the portal as soon as the Cowboys season ended. Then two more players took a little more time but big man Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe and Keylan Boone dove in, Moncrieffe made sense as his playing time had dwindled with the arrival and definite emergence of Moussa Cisse, who had quickly come out and said he was staying to the delight of Cowboys fans. Also, while Keylan Boone, who had been a good shooter off the bench went in and out of the coach’s doghouse mainly for off the court hijinks, his twin Kalib, the more squared away of the duo announced he was staying.
When you combine Cisse with guards Avery Anderson and Bryce Thompson, who came from Kansas in the 2021 spring and summer portal cycle, Boynton feels he has a good foundation.
“I think those three will be regarded as three of the better 30 players in the conference in the next season,” Boynton said. “So, with that comes expectations. We’ll have an opportunity to be good.”
Boynton’s portal shopping list starts with guards, point guards to be exact. The addition of Hunter in the portal had to get the Cowboys head coach’s attention. Trust though that he will be methodical and not offer without thinking. There are a lot of point guards in that “ocean,” and he has one committed for the next recruiting cycle. Either way, it will be interesting to see what Boynton and his staff do knowing they also have some scholarship reductions still to deal with courtesy of that ridiculous NCAA punishment that was imposed.