Brandon Averette Transferring an Inflection Point for Mike Boynton

UPDATE (Mar. 29 at 11:20 a.m.): As you can tell from the comments, I’m a moron. I forgot that Michael Weathers played PG at Miami (OH). For some reason I had envisioned him as a two-guard. I may have been confusing him with Curtis Jones. Anyway, I was wrong! He’s very much a PG. Here’s a look at his season at Miami (OH) in 2016-17.

So while everything I said below has to be seen through this prism, I do still think Averette transferring is a bit of an inflection point if only because it provides Boynton flexibility with another scholarship to do something big with. We’ll see if he can land a whale.

I never really thought “wow, Brandon Averette transferring after his sophomore year is going to be super memorable,” but here we are, and here is why.

Averette, a good (ok, at times decent) option as a backup point guard in the Big 12, is headed elsewhere after his second season in Stillwater. This shouldn’t affect a good college basketball team tremendously. What it does, however, is shine a light on the fact that Mike Boynton currently has zero options at point guard in 2018-19.

And this is why Averette transferring is an inflection point. With Averette in the mix, it’s easy to see a patchwork of Averette and, uh, some other guys, helping OSU to an 8-10 or 7-11 or 6-10 record in the Big 12. Now that he’s gone, though? Now you’re naked. Now you have Lindy Waters or Michael Weathers bringing the ball up. Now the onus is on you to land Courtney Ramey or go find yourself another Kendall Smith.

College basketball, maybe more than any other sport, lends you the opportunity to change your own #narrative in a short a time as possible. College football is not like this, mostly because of how many good players it takes to make up a great team. But in college hoops, you can go from “the cupboard is empty” to “save us, Ramey” in the time it takes to sign a piece of paper.

Boone touched on this the other day, and I thought it was fascinating. Which brings us back to the current situation. Boynton, who was presumably hired because he was going to go land some Taveion Hollingsworths, is being put to the test in the sticky in-between period of time with a honeymoon-ish Year 1 in the books and a much-expected-from Year 2 looming.

I don’t want to overstate the importance of scoring a quality point guard via the transfer market or through the high school ranks, but I think Averette’s departure will have one of the more fascinating “how it affected the program to how good he actually was” ratios in recent memory.

You’re losing 6 points, 2 rebounds and 2 assists a game. Nothing Trey Reeves a replacement level PG couldn’t fill up. But with Averette’s departure, you’re losing a little more than statistical production. You’re losing a backup plan, your emergency brake. You’re sort of losing an excuse, and it’s forcing you to walk a tightrope between the first two years at the helm.

Something tells me that’s right where Mike Boynton does his best work.