Boynton: Associate HC Lamont Evans Is ‘Brother I Never Had’

Oklahoma State assistant coach Lamont Evans could have been announced as the 20th men’s basketball coach at Oklahoma State on Monday, but he was not. Mike Boynton was, but Boynton said Evans will stand where he stood some day.

During Boynton’s opening statement at his introductory news conference, he announced Evans will return as “associate head coach.”

“That’s my co-coach,” Boynton said. “I have a head coaching title. I don’t want to say that doesn’t mean anything because it does. It was a goal of mine, but that isn’t what this is about.”

Evans and Boynton were part of the Kansas State, South Carolina, Stephen F. Austin triangle that Brad Underwood brought to coach at OSU. They met at South Carolina in 2012. Boynton had been there since 2008 as an assistant coach, and Evans had been hired to the same position from Kansas State in 2012.

“We connected,” Evans said on Monday in Stillwater. “We talked, it wasn’t quick. We started building a relationship.”

When Boynton went to Stephen F. Austin in 2013 to join Underwood’s staff, he and Evans (who stayed behind at South Carolina) spoke for three years while Boynton was in Nacogdoches, Texas, a place he had to put into Google Maps to find.

They talked about their current jobs, but they always wondered what it would be like to work together — at the top.

“We hit it off in a way that we didn’t have to hang out every day, but it was a mutual respect,” Evans said.

With the spotlight on Boynton, with thousands of fans glued to their computer screens to try to figure out who was this 35-year-old that Mike Holder had hired, Boynton grabbed the beams of light and turned them toward Evans.

“I don’t even know where to start,” Boynton said. “He’s an unbelievably hard worker. That’s key. He’s tremendously loyal, smart, knows basketball, and for us it’s about relationships.”

Boynton said having Evans alongside makes his job easier. It can put his mind at ease. He said Evans gets him on more levels beyond basketball.

“To have the opportunity, at my first head coaching position, to have someone who I’m so in line with philosophically gives me great comfort and I cannot thank him enough,” he said.

Evans said he is unbelievably thankful for his opportunity to spearhead the OSU program. He said he is happy for Boynton and his family, said he deserves it with all the work he put in.

He also said he can’t help but remember a time when this was just something they imagined.

“Once we got here, we wanted to buckle down and be great together,” Evans said.