The Rundown: Boynton Talks Oral Roberts, Chuba Hubbard for Heisman

STILLWATER — The Cowboys will lace their sneakers up for real Wednesday.

The Oklahoma State basketball team hosts Oral Roberts at 7 p.m. Wednesday in Gallagher-Iba Arena to start the Cowboys’ 2019-20 campaign. On Monday, OSU coach Mike Boynton met with reporters to talk the open of the regular season.

• Boynton said he was more pleased after watching the film than he was immediately after the Rogers State exhibition.

• Boynton talked to Keylan Boone and Avery Anderson before the exhibition game, and Boynton said the two were nervous.

• Keylan Boone preformed as well as any of the freshmen leading up to the Rogers State game, but the nerves got to him a little bit.

• The team did a lot of rebounding drills in practice this week after Rogers State outrebounded OSU 38-36 on Friday.

• On Oral Roberts: “They got a good team. I don’t know exactly where they’re picked, but I think it’s pretty high in their league. They got a pretty experienced group, and they’re really good inside. They’ll present us another challenge for our big guys to be ready for the task. They’ll have to work on positioning and get ready to block out when a shot goes up. Hopefully our depth and our athleticism in the paint will give us a chance to maybe overcome some of that.”

• On OSU having the past two ORU coaches (Barry Hinson and Scott Sutton) on its staff: “It’s been so long (since Hinson coached there) that it’s really irrelevant for him. It’s probably a little bit more relevant for Scott. There may still be a player or two that he coached or recruited there, but he’s been gone long enough.”

• On expectations for the crowd Wednesday: “I hope it’s a big crowd for the game period. It’s a big game. It’s the first game. We’re playing. It’s important that we get off to a good start. We played our first game last year, and our five guys who return remember, we didn’t win. It’s much better to start 1-0 than 0-1. We gotta have the right preparation the next two days to get ourselves ready for a team that’s gonna come in here expecting to win. I expect them to come in here and try to win a game and play as hard as they can.”

• On where this team is at compared to where last year’s team was at at this time: “We’re more mature. We have a more mature group, and I say that, we have six freshmen. But we have more mature freshmen.

“I think we have guys who have a better understanding of what it takes to prepare, and a lot of that credit goes to our returners. Thomas (Dziagwa), Cam (McGriff), Lindy (Waters), Trey (Reeves) and then Ice (Isaac Likekele) and Yor (Anei), who have all been through a season already, have helped those young guys understand, you know, what does the day before a game look like in terms of rest and hydration and eating right? How do you study a scouting report so that you’re not looking like you don’t have any clue what’s going on on the court? Their leadership has really helped our staff just focus on the things we need to do better because they’ve taken care of a lot of the maintenance things from the inside.”

• Hidde Roessink played with a lot of confidence against Rogers State.

• Roessink and Kalib Boone both got high grades against Rogers State. “Having depth period, from a coach who stood here in front of you guys knowing who was going to play every minute of the game (last season), is a great benefit to us. But on the interior what happens a lot of times is big guys, especially early on, get in foul trouble. We saw it with Yor the other day. So, to have other guys who can come and help affect the game around the rim, rebounding, blocking shots and finishing, is a big deal for us.”

• Keylan Boone was the first person off the bench against Rogers State because he earned it. He isn’t necessarily the sixth man, but he will be a big part of OSU’s rotation.

• On if he thinks Chuba Hubbard should win the Heisman: “Absolutely without a question. And if he doesn’t win it, then Tylan Wallace should win it. … I’m on the Choo Choo Train or whatever they call it.”