The Rundown: Boynton on OU, Cade Cunningham and Practice Jerseys

STILLWATER — The Cowboys will go through January without having won a conference game, but Feb. 1 has chances of a fresh start.

Oklahoma State travels to Oklahoma on Saturday to play against a struggling Sooner squad that lost to Kansas State on Wednesday night. After the Cowboys’ practice Thursday evening, Mike Boynton met with reporters. Here is what he had to say.

• On Bedlam: “It’s one of the best things we have in college sports is true rivalries where the fans get a little bit more passionate about it. It’s always exciting to play in a game where you know who will be into seeing the result. Obviously both teams need to get a little bit of momentum going.”

• “We haven’t won a game in the league, that’s kind of a big motivator for us. I think that’s our main focus. I’ve said it all along, this game doesn’t count for more either way, but it means more. We definitely will approach it that way.”

• On his team’s competitive practice: “I think it’s important that we always remind ourselves what the core of this is about, and it’s about competing. Sometimes strategy and who’s shooting well and things like that kind of masks some competitiveness in there. So I thought it was a real important time for us to just get back to the bare bones of this. This program means a lot, and if you are going to take the court in one of our jerseys, then you are going to play at a certain level competitively. You may not play well, you may not make all your shots, but the effort, the passion, the intensity at which you go about doing it has to always be at a certain standard.”

• On struggling in Norman: “It’s not easy playing on the road anywhere. They’ve had some good teams. Two years ago they had a little freshman guard who is an All-Star for the NBA now, so that kinda helps. Just give them credit. They out-played us down there. We’ve played them better here, obviously won one game our first year. Last year we had them down pretty big and just ran out of gas. That happens. Continue to try to find ways to try to play better, and hopefully Saturday’s the start of it.”

• On OU: “I think always when you play a team that’s coached by Coach (Lon) Kruger, you know you’re going to get a certain level of toughness, sharing the ball, they don’t really turn it over and you’re gonna have to guard guys in one-on-one situations probably a little bit more than you usually do. They’ve gotta good team. Kristian Doolittle is playing at an All-Big 12 level, has been most of the year, struggled obviously yesterday. Then Brady Manek has had a really good career. Austin Reeves provided an offensive spark that they really needed this year. A team that’s got a lot of fire power, and we’ll see if we’re up for the challenge.”

• On Yor Anei’s adjustment to coming off the bench: “It’s kinda been like it’s been for most of our team. We haven’t found consistency yet. Even with him coming off the bench, it hasn’t been as consistent as we necessarily need to have success nightly. We’ll continue to try to find the groups that give us the best chance. We’ll find out a little bit more tomorrow on how we approach Saturday.”

• On Cade Cunningham being the composite No. 1 2020 player: “There’s a certain level of pride that’s associated with being the best. I’m not calling myself a prophet by any means, but I saw this four years ago with this kid. I’m really glad that he’s gonna be a part of our program. I’m happy that this is ultimately playing itself out from a national standpoint.

“At the end of the day, that’s just the beginning for him. He’s got big, big goals. He believes we can help him get to where he ultimately wants to go.”

• On Cunningham’s awareness of OSU’s struggles: “He’s a competitive kid. He knows the guys on our team, and obviously when his time comes, he’ll have an idea of what he’s expected to do to help us. But for now, I’m just happy to enjoy watching him have the success he’s having and get the accolades that he’s receiving. Eventually when the time comes, we’ll figure out how he can most impact our program.”

• On freshman emotions heading into their first Bedlam: “Usually I would (talk to them about it), but it’s been so much focus on us just playing better as a group and trying to just execute consistently through a 40-minute game against Big 12 competition. It’s really been about just us.

“Our guys weren’t wearing their practice jerseys. It was purposeful thing. I wanted our guys to understand, ‘You earn the right to put this on, just like you earn the right to play and put on a game uniform.’ We just kinda needed to scale back the external things and talk more about who we have to be on a day-to-day basis.”

• On the no practice jerseys: “I spent the last two days on the road and just spent a lot of time thinking about how to help our guys. One of the things I felt I could do to help them was adjust the lanes a little bit, put the focus back on where it needs to be, which is, ‘Are we competing at the level that the people who support this program can be proud to support this program?’ I think it’s the only thing in my first-ever press conference when I was announced that I told the fans we would do. We haven’t done that consistently enough to satisfy that promise that I made then. It’s important that I make the guys understand there’s a level of responsibility that comes with wearing that OSU logo and playing in this program. We can’t ever lose sight of that.”

• On if he has seen players’ demeanor change during this slump: “Yeah, some guys not all of them, and that’s OK. I don’t want our guys to walk around in jubilee during a stretch where we haven’t had the success that we want. At the same time, I want them to keep in perspective that there’s still a lot of games to play. We can control today and how we can approach it, our attitudes, our effort and hopefully continue to get better.”