Hoops Notebook: Learning Moments, Boynton’s Dreams and Donovan Williams

The most anticipated season in Cowboy basketball since Marcus Smart was on campus is off to a hot start.

Oklahoma State is 3-0 this year and rank 29th (of 357) in KenPom’s adjusted efficiency margin. Mike Boynton, Kalib Boone and Ferron Flavors met with reporters via Zoom on Thursday to discuss the team’s start and preview the Pokes’ matchup with Oakland at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Here are some of the things the Cowboys hit on.

Kalib Boone’s Learning Moment against Marquette

Marquette boasted the best front court the Cowboys have seen this season, but the Cowboys’ center had a hard time staying on the floor.

Kalib Boone fouled out in 15 minutes against the Golden Eagles, finishing with five points, four rebounds and two assists.

He played just five minutes in the first half before he picked up his second foul. His primary matchup was Marquette senior Theo John. With years of experience, John was able to be a pest and get under Boone’s skin. It has worked well for John this season, as he is averaging 9.7 points and 9.7 rebounds a game.

For Boone, a sophomore, it was a learning opportunity in his seventh career start.

“I can’t let somebody doing those little things get to me so early in the game,” Boone said. “Him doing the little things that he was doing that game, especially in the first half, I just gotta be a better player. I just gotta block all that stuff out. I picked up a cheap foul just wrestling with him at one point. That led to a turnover, which lead to me getting my second foul. If I’m like mentally in the game, I’m not worried about what he was doing and all that then I wouldn’t have picked up my second that early.”

“In the second half, I did a better job of saying, ‘Man, you know what, if he’s gonna be this big, annoying dude wanting to do all this little cheap stuff, I’m going to just have to live with it.’ That’s what I did. I just gotta learn off that kind of stuff.”

Dreaming Up Plays

OSU’s 2-3 zone stumped the Golden Eagles on Saturday, as Marquette finished the game with 24 turnovers, the most in the Mike Boynton era.

In previous years, Boynton’s go-to zones were a 3-2 and a 1-3-1, so I asked him Thursday about his decision to go with a 2-3. As part of his explanation of having Isaac Likekele’s and Cade Cunningham’s length on the bottom of that zone and Rondel Walker and Bryce Williams up top, Boynton dropped this gold quote.

“I don’t have any hobbies,” Boynton said. “I literally digest basketball about 20 hours a day. It drives my wife crazy sometimes. I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, and I have a little thing like a notepad, I draw plays up in the middle of the night just so I don’t forget. I come in in the morning, and I usually go right to Keiton’s [Page] office and say, ‘Here was my dream play of the night.'”

Different Paths

The scouting report on Donovan Williams entering his freshman season was that he was (and is) a pure scorer.

With OSU’s guard depth this season, though, Williams isn’t going to have the opportunity to average 28.3 points a game like he did his senior year at Lincoln-North Star High School. So, Williams is having to find other ways to contribute in limited minutes until it is his turn to be a go-to scorer.

Williams didn’t score against Marquette, but he did pull in two boards and bullied a ball out of a Marquette player’s hands in his three minutes. Boynton made it a point in his postgame team talk to praise Williams for what he brought to the game.

It can be a tough transition for guys to go from the guy in high school to a guy in college until they’re ready to be the guy again. Boynton said part of his job is to smooth that transition.

“It’s a critical part of my job is to help him understand the future,” Boynton said. “This isn’t the end for him. The path that he and Cade are walking are very different. I make it very plain to him, it’s not about trying to do what he does. You guys can both get to the same destination, you just may just do it in a different way.

“I don’t ever want him to get caught up in, ‘Well no one’s talking about me, and I was Mr. Basketball in the state of Nebraska.’ It’s not because you’re not good. It’s just because your time isn’t now, but there’s some valuable moments for him this year, the opportunity to practice every day with this group is gonna help him become a really good player for us. He’s got a natural swag or edginess about him that’s gonna bode well for him down the stretch. He hasn’t lost confidence in his ability, and the fact that he’s bought into understanding he’s gotta help us defensively more than offensively now is certainly a positive.”