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10 Thoughts On New Oklahoma State Coach Mike Boynton

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In a stunner on Friday, Oklahoma State hired former Brad Underwood assistant coach Mike Boynton as its 20th head coach in school history. I was at a golf course in Scottsdale when the news broke having lunch with some CBS co-workers.

I had to explain to them afterwards that I wasn’t ignoring them to text with my friends but that in fact I had legitimate news to try and formulate an opinion about.

But now it’s been a few hours, I have better perspective (sort of) and I’m ready to unload 10 thoughts. Let’s jump right in.

1. Mike Holder better be right

I’ve heard this hire described as “safe” and “conservative.” I’d say more like complacent and “you’re so far out on an island not even Wilson knows where you’re at” levels of risky. There is a reason this type of hire — a current assistant coach with no head coaching experience — was not on our radar (or anyone’s radar).

The risk-mitigating hires were ranked like this:

1. Small name for small money

2. Big name for big money

3. Gottlieb for whatever you wanted

229. A current assistant coach who has never coached for TBD money

At least with Gottlieb you could have sold the fan interest angle.

But now Holder has put himself in a tough spot. You’re starting from behind the 8-ball with this one which isn’t the end of the world, but it unnecessarily turns the pressure up on yourself. Last year, when Underwood was hired, it was a home run, and everybody knew it. This time it’s an uphill climb, and everyone (including Holder) knows it.

Holder has made (plenty) of great hires before. And there’s a rattlesnake-huntin’ football coach still around these parts who had never been a head ball coach before that he backed for years. But I hope he feels like he knows some things the rest of us don’t — and I presume he does — because this could go even further south in a hurry.

2. Mike Boynton’s in an awkward spot

I genuinely feel bad for the guy. He’s been put in a wickedly awkward spot. Win, and he’ll be accused of wanting to leave at the first opportunity for more money just like his old boss. Lose, and well, it’s, “I told you so.” A fan base intoxicated on a nasty potion of fear and pain had already poured lighter fluid on the logs when Underwood left.

Holder just handed them the matches.

This is the type of position that could set somebody like Boynton back several years. Let’s say he goes three seasons in Stillwater, and it goes badly. Then what? There’s no other head coaching experience to fall back on if he wants to continue to do so in the future at a smaller school. It’s sort of “win big immediately or be a lifelong assistant.”

3. We should give him three (or more) years

On that note, I do hope OSU fans give him a chance, and I believe they will. He shot for the moon and stuck the landing. Don’t hold that against him. The other thing, and I said this with Underwood and would say it no matter who was hired, is that we have to give him three years to build a product.

There won’t be a Jawun Evans in Stillwater this time around, and there might not be a Jeffrey Carroll. Judging him based on Year 1 sells short any long-range plan he’s trying to generate.

This was the downfall with Travis Ford. He tried to win the national title every year and then he’d have to hit the reset button every July. I hope we give Boynton a few years to find his legs, stock up his dudes and make a push.

4. It feels like a weird fit

First time coach from Brooklyn who played at South Carolina and just got thrown into the shark-infested waters of the Big 12 currently inhabited by Bill Self, Bob Huggins, Lon Kruger, Shaka Smart and Steve Prohm.

It’s odd.

The other strange thing, it appears as if SFA didn’t think enough of him last year to hire him as their head coach. But now he has the chops to be the head dude in Stillwater.

Boynton was considered a candidate to replace Underwood at SFA before that job went to Kyle Keller, the former OSU staffer who had been working as an assistant at Texas A&M. Now he’s joining Underwood, again. [NewsOK]

The whole thing just smells like complacency. That Holder not only told Underwood “We’re playing like Kansas State and Texas Tech,” but thought to himself “… and that’s exactly where we want to be!”

It’s also been sort of difficult to find the positives in this. I admit, I never even considered a current assistant being hired. If you would have told me that Thursday was courtesy interview day, I would have told you, “Yeah … but Gottlieb” because it did feel like courtesy interview day for everyone else.

Like, the best thing we can say about Boynton so far is that he’s not Travis Ford we think he can kind of recruit, and we’ve heard he’s probably good with player development. There’s just not a lot there to go on. I should say, that doesn’t mean Boynton won’t be awesome — he might be — only that on March 23, 2017, this is not a W for Mike Holder.

5. National reaction

Well, it wasn’t great. I was completely glued to Twitter all afternoon, and basically the very best compliments from hoops experts were some variation of “this is kind of odd, but … I guess it could work!”

Holder should not be hiring coaches based on what the national media thinks of course, but this takes us back to No. 1 — Holder better know something pretty much everybody else in the college basketball world does not know.

6. Does Holder care about hoops?

That brings us to this.

If Oklahoma State fans on social media are any indication (and maybe they aren’t), there is not going to be a lot of season ticket renewing going on this offseason.

Boynton is an unknown commodity — He wasn’t even the most-well known assistant on Underwood’s staff! — that was just thrust into the middle of a tenuous relationship between an athletic director and his patronage.

OSU fans needed something they could bank on or trust in, and they got neither. They needed to be able to buy into the head man, and fair or not, I’m not sure they’ll be able to with somebody who studied under Underwood. I’m not saying that’s right, but it might be a reality. His first interview was fine, but it didn’t elicit any ringing of phones in the OSU season ticket office.

Holder essentially said, “I know … Travis Ford … and we botched the Underwood thing … but really, trust us this time.”

No, fans, as least in the short term, needed the immediate trust level to be high and not for it to have to be built from the ground up all over again.

7. Why not Doug?

First of all, please don’t use the logic of “why are you criticizing Boynton for not having any head coaching experience but not Doug.” Doug was a unique candidate with basically no comp. He brought to the table a specific set of skills that no other candidate offered. I’m comparing Boynton to other candidates like him. Not to Doug.

OK, carrying on.

Look, I promise we won’t talk about him again as the potential head coach at Oklahoma State because if it didn’t happen this time it will never, ever happen. But if you’re Holder, and you know you’re going to have to activate the Stillwater defense shields against criticism nationally, why not step all the way outside the box?

It’s almost like Holder wanted all the criticism nationally with none of the fervor from a substantial faction of his fans. Instead, he got a collective, “Wait … who?” from both. Again, just because you’re unknown doesn’t mean you’re not going to be awesome, but it feels like a tougher place to star from than a program like OSU should be starting from.

8. Importance of continuity?

I just don’t know that I buy the “the Underwood momentum and continuity had to be kept, and this was the specific way to do it” argument. There are other ways to advance momentum that don’t involve this move. There are other ways to restock the cupboard (graduate transfers, JUCO guys etc.)

I don’t mean to take a sledgehammer to this thing from every angle. The reality here is that some group of people was always going to criticize Holder and this move no matter what, but it seems like he sort of went out of his way to make that group of folks as big as possible.

9. Contract Will Fascinate

Brad Underwood made $1 million last year. It was the lowest in the Big 12. And now … they’re going to take a step backwards? Or they’re going to pay Boynton more than Underwood was making? Either one would be bizarre considering all of the circumstances that went into this. This will also tell us how much of this was a financial play (it feels like a lot of it!)

Which reminds me.

Oklahoma State basketball — in the span of seven days — went from as hopeful as it has been since the early 2000s to as confused as it has been maybe ever. This time last week, Amauri Hardy, Latravian Glover and Zach Dawson were about to join a core of Jawun Evans and Jeffrey Carroll with Underwood coming back to lead the charge.

Now two of those people — and maybe all three — are gone. And the recruits are presumably up in the air.

10. I hope Boynton rocks

Really, I do. I desire that. It’s good for him, and he seems like a likable guy. It’s good for Oklahoma State which is obviously important for all of us. And it’s good for this blog which I am incredibly invested in on a personal and financial level.

It bums me out to no end that the air has been sucked out of the room by everything that has happened over the last week. I hate that.

I do think that winning probably cures everything, and Poke faithful will always back a winner with a great trajectory. But it feels like we’re a long way from there right now.

I did like what Boynton preached in his interview with Dave Hunziker about defense. I like that what I’ve heard about him behind the scenes is that he’s smart and engaging. I like that his former players are all in. There is a lot to a like.

But there are a lot of questions to answer, too. And a hell of a row to hoe.

Mike Holder is on an island with this one. It could realistically turn out to be a fantastic hire in retrospect, and I hope it does. I like my BBQ sauce with my crow.

But it could also be a decade-long dagger to a program that was just given a sliver of what the outside world looks like after being confined to a dark, damp sports jail for most of the decade before.

If it is, that will be crushing. Because there’s nothing more sad than an empty, squeaky Old Barn on those cold winter nights in northeast Oklahoma.

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