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Mike Boynton’s Fingerprints All Over Elite 8 South Carolina Team

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Well, it’s been a weird day. It started around 2pm with sources confirming Doug Gottlieb being dismissed as a head coaching option.

Shortly thereafter, Oklahoma State had itself a head basketball coach in Mike Boynton.

Besides the plethora of emotions following that announcement, my first reaction was, what is out there that as a fan I can look at and see literally any success Mike Boynton has had? Luckily and strangely, it’s this year’s South Carolina Gamecocks.

The No. 7 seed Gamecocks have just made their program’s 1st ever Elite 8 this year after upsetting No. 2 seed Duke in the Round of 32 and No. 3 seed Baylor in the Sweet 16.

Mike Boynton was instrumental in putting that team together including McDonald’s All-American PJ Dozier and top-50 recruit Sindarius Thornwell (who was also the SEC Player of the Year this year). Boynton’s recruits combined for 35 points against the red-hot Blue Devils in Round 2.

In fact, the Thornwell signing was one of Frank Martin’s first recruits and helped lay the groundwork for this Sweet 16 push in Year 4. The State, a South Carolina newspaper, had this to say in regards to Mike Boyton’s recruitment of Thornwell.

Signing the state’s consensus top player — a 6-5 swingman who can play three positions and perhaps a fourth — was the culmination of a recruiting process begun under former Gamecocks coach Darrin Horn and secured by incoming coach Frank Martin.

But it was the man in the middle — former Horn assistant Mike Boynton — who provided the bridge between the two.

“Coach Mike did a lot of legwork,” said Thornwell’s uncle, DaJuan. “Coach Mike continued even though Horn got fired. He continued, and he told coach Martin, ‘Hey, this is the guy you need to get before you do anything.’ ”

You know, like most fans out there, I was pretty bummed. For the most part, I still am. There were tons more qualified candidates in my opinion out there. I will say this though, it appears this guy can recruit. Of course, recruiting isn’t everything. I was a student during the Ford era, I know what it’s like to watch terrible basketball.

But he did help take South Carolina from outside the top 50 in recruiting nationally inside the top 35 even rising as high as No. 20 in 2010.

Maybe Boynton will be good, maybe he won’t. What we do know though is that the South Carolina team he helped knit together is brimming with confidence and one game away from Final Four. Our hope, as Cowboy fans, is that he can architect that same build as the head man in Stillwater.

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