Breaking: Oklahoma State Has Itself a Basketball Coach

It’s rare that the result of a single regular season game would have lasting effects for a head coach or a program. But Mike Boynton’s first road win has the potential to do both.

His undermanned Cowboys, already short Davon Dillard and Zack Dawson — Boynton dismissed both from the program earlier this year. They’re also short an injured Tavarius Shine — maybe his best overall player this year. Still, they went into Allen Fieldhouse and basically led the Big 12’s best team from wire to wire.

With a neutral site win over Florida State and a home overtime Bedlam win already in his case, Boynton’s assembled quite a nice little collection of trophies. Celebrating after a game in Lawrence for just the 12th time in program history will be the jewel of his collection, until and unless he captains his Cowboys to the NCAA Tournament. That became a lot more of a possibility on Saturday.

But Boynton says he doesn’t get too caught up in looking ahead and that his focus will quickly shift to Baylor who comes to Stillwater on Tuesday night. Still, he wants his team to enjoy the historic win.

“As far as the big picture, I like to think we can be a team that continues to play for a long time,” said Boynton “but I want my guys to just focus on the moment. Right now, they need to just enjoy this win, because not very many people have come in here and done that.”

Not many at all. Boynton was asked about winning his first game in The Phog when legends like Eddie Sutton never did.

“I don’t know if I want to be trying to say I’m anything better than him at all,” said Boynton. “I’ve got a long way to go. I think I’m at 14 [wins] he had 800 and something. He [Sutton]’s won at a lot more places than I have. That’s for sure.”

The hyperbole begins to flow after games like this. Contracts get earned on games like this. But the important thing we have learned this season, and not just this game, is that Boynton can coach.

As the first-year coach aptly pointed up after the Bedlam win, most of us didn’t know his name 12 months ago. What kind of coach was he? How would he match up across the scorer’s table from some of the best coaches in the country? Boynton has stood toe-to-toe with some absolute legends and he’s yet to flinch.

One of those coaches is Hall of Famer, Bill Self who has watched his alma mater become the first team to beat him at home twice during his tenure at Kansas.

“So you’ve got to give him [Boynton] a lot of credit for that because they play tough, they play very tough,” Self said.

Now the likable figure who tugged at our heart strings during his introductory press conference has shown that he’s got the coaching chops to go with his charisma.

Boynton, who had already changed into an orange hoodie to do some of his postgame interviews, was ready to tend to the other part of his plan of building a winner in Stillwater, recruiting. He said priority No. 1 was getting his team refocused for the quick turnaround against Baylor and a chance at back-to-back conference wins for the first time this year.

No. 2 is hitting the recruiting trail while the iron is hot.

“The other thing is, I’m going to go recruiting, like I always do,” said Boynton. “I’m going to get out of here, that’s why I’m dressed this way. I’m going to jump on a plane and go try to continue to build this program.”

Oklahoma St Head Coach @thacoachmike Boynton & Asst David Kontaxis courtside In Richmond Va watching Armando Bacot & Isaiah Todd on same day after big win at Kansas. That's BIG TIME!#BIGSHOTS

— BIG SHOTS (@BigShotsNation) February 4, 2018

The fruits of that labor will be examined in the future but he’s got a brand new sales pitch to use.

How this win will be viewed in one year or five years all depends on how well he builds that program. But I have feeling this is going to be less a blip on the radar than it is a stepping stone to better things to come.