STILLWATER – Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton is set to meet with the media on Monday morning for the end-of-the-season press conference. One of the main topics will surely be what the roster is going to look like for next season.
We’ll most likely get a much more definitive answer from Boynton than we did after the loss to North Texas as it will have been nearly a week. However, Boynton did say the players would be getting a little bit of time off and away from the program.
"It'll be pretty quick,” Boynton said of the conversations between staff and players about coming back for next season. “By rule, we got to give them some time off, but those conversations can start to happen fairly soon. And then, like I said, each person's conversations [are] a little bit different, because their options are a little bit different. So, some of them will probably be fairly brief, some of them may take a little bit longer to decipher. But, at the end of the day, we'll all get on the same page about what's necessary for our program to have more success moving forward."
There’s certainly quite a few questions surrounding the current roster heading into the 2023-24 season. Boynton and Co. operated at two-less scholarships this season as part of the NCAA sanctions, so those will be back and available for next season. The coaching staff is bringing in at least five freshmen as part of the 2023 signing class and will undoubtedly bring in players from the transfer portal.
Then there’s the discussion about which players will be returning next season. The only two scholarship players on the roster who have run out of eligibility are guard Caleb Asberry and center Bernard Kouma. So that opens two scholarships.
So, starting at 13 scholarships and working our down the line, five have already been accounted for with Brandon Garrison, Eric Dailey, Justin McBride, Jamyron Keller and Connor Dow, bring the number down to eight.
Now for the tricky part. Seniors Avery Anderson III, Kalib Boone and John-Michael Wright all have a COVID year remaining, as does Chris Harris Jr., who re-tore the ACL in his knee for the third time. If he wishes to return, the staff will honor his scholarship.
Moussa Cisse, Woody Newton and Bryce Thompson will be set to enter their senior seasons. Tyreek Smith is set to enter his redshirt senior season but will have an additional year of eligibility after the 2023-24 season due to COVID.
Then there’s soon-to-be sophomore Quion Williams, who played a pivotal role down the final stretch of the season as he started to figure his game out.
Should every single returning player above return, that would put the Cowboys at 14 total scholarships. However, that can’t be the case as averages would tell you at least a couple of the players will either enter the transfer portal or declare pro. Which ones are yet to be seen, but you’d better believe some difficult discussions are being had and difficult decisions are being made on both sides of the desk.
