Mike Boynton Reinstates Davon Dillard, Could Play Sunday Against HBU

Oklahoma State has played the first five games of the year without arguably its second-best player, Davon Dillard. The junior forward was suspended indefinitely earlier in November for “failure to meet team standards.”

But Mike Boynton said on Saturday that OSU will get its second-leading scorer from 2016-17 at some point in the near future, possibly as soon as Sunday.

“He’s been reinstated now,” said Boynton. “Not sure if he’ll play tomorrow (against HBU). But he’s available to us. We’ll see how far along he is in terms of understanding our schemes and all that stuff and being ready to play.”

Boynton’s squad has struggled a bit with depth throughout the first five games, although they rank No. 46 on KenPom.com with an adjusted defense in the top 50 nationally and an adjusted offense in the top 60.

Dillard will presumably help with both.

“We have to continue to build our depth,” said Boynton when I asked him how OSU was going to shore up its interior defense. “We’re playing Lindy Waters inside some which is not necessarily ideal at this level of college basketball.

“When we get Dillard back … and Yankuba (Sima) which we know won’t be for a couple weeks, I think we have a little more toughness, a little more physicality inside. At some point we may have to double the post … or just find a way to speed up the game and extend the floor to keep (opposing) bigs from being too effective.”