Get To Know Cowboy Basketball Assistant Coach John Cooper

On April 6th, 2017, OSU men’s head basketball coach Mike Boynton hired his first (and only assistant, so far) coach outside of the existing regime in Stillwater. His name is John Cooper, the 48-year-old former head coach of the Miami (Ohio) Redhawks, who was let go at the end of the 2016-17 season.

Cooper’s hiring as an assistant has already paid at least one potentially huge dividend for the Cowboys. Cooper’s former point guard, MAC Freshman of the Year Michael Weathers Jr., has transferred to Stillwater.

The 6-foot-2 point guard will have three years of eligibility remaining when he is eligible to suit up at the start of 2018. Weathers averaged 16.7 points per game, 4.8 assists per game, and 4.2 rebounds per game as a freshman at Miami. Based on the roster construction, he looks slotted to take over as point guard when Kendall Smith’s one year is up at the end of the upcoming 2017-2018 season.

But what else is there to know about the new Cowboys assistant? Let’s look at a couple strengths John Cooper brings to the table.

1. Cooper has plenty of coaching experience

John Cooper brings a vast and diverse background of coaching with him to Stillwater. While lacking success as a head coach (102-152 career record), Cooper has had coaching stops as an assistant at several Division 1 programs including South Carolina, Oregon, and Auburn.

Before landing the head coaching gig at Miami, Cooper was the head coach at Tennessee State, where he took the Tigers from a 9-23 record in his first year to a 20-13 record in his third year—the school’s first 20-win season in 32 years.

Cooper has been around coaching for a total of 24 years, bringing an element of diverse experience that the existing staff (Mike Boynton, Lamont Evans, Keiton Page) didn’t currently have.

2. Cooper Has Ties To the Area

John Cooper grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, a little less than a five-hour drive from Stillwater, and played his college ball at Wichita State. Cooper should be a real asset when it comes to recruiting the KC Metro area, as he already showed in bringing the Weathers twins to Miami (Ohio), as well as bringing the more productive Weathers, Michael, along with him to Oklahoma State. (The Weathers brothers played at Shawnee Mission North in the KC area).

3. Cooper Will Be An Asset Coaching OSU Bigs

As a college forward for Wichita State, Cooper led the Shockers his junior year in points per game and rebounds per game. While Boynton, Evans, and Page will help the Cowboy guards develop, Cooper will be tasked with getting the most out of bigs.

His experience and coaching will need to be instrumental in the continued development of Mitch Solomon, Yankuba Sima, Cam McGriff, Lucas N’Guessan and on down the line. Traditonally the Cowboys have seen the lion’s share of their production come from guard play. But Cooper could be a key in both bringing in more traditional bigs and developing them once they hit campus.

“Tremendous human being first and foremost.” Boynton said recently on Tom Dirato’s radio show Out of Bounds. “A guy that I’ve grown to know over the last probably 18-19 years. He was a part of the staff that recruited me to South Carolina, and I got to play for him for one year on that staff. And he’s always been about the players. He’s always been a guy who really really genuinely cares for the players in his program.”

All in all, Cooper’s hiring seems like a nice move to balance out the Cowboy coaching staff. His experience, ties to the area, ability to coach bigs, and connections should bode very well for Mike Boynton moving forward.