Things are looking up for head coach Mike Boynton and Oklahoma State Basketball. Here is a preview of the Cowboys’ 2019-20 campaign.
Mike Boynton followed former head coach Brad Underwood from Stephen F. Austin in 2016, then when Underwood left for Illinois after one season, Boynton was elevated to the head coaching position. He had some success in his first season, reaching the quarterfinals of the NIT, but last season Oklahoma State Basketball struggled to a 9th-place finish in the Big 12 with a 12-20 record overall.
The third season will be key for Boynton and the Pokes, will they rebound from last season or will the turnaround take a little longer? While they finished just 5-13 during conference play last season, over the last three weeks of the season they began to put things together a bit and became a tougher out for teams down the stretch. After getting blown out by Kansas State by 39, they finished the season by taking Texas Tech to overtime, falling to Kansas by five, beating Baylor and West Virginia and then falling to TCU by three in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.
What improved for Oklahoma State over the small sample size at the end of last year, was their offense that saw a nearly six-point bump over their season total. They are just two seasons removed from their NIT quarterfinals trip, so it’s not as if the program has been stuck in a state of everlasting mediocrity. The 2019-20 season represents the program being at the proverbial fork in the road, the question is, which path will have the Cowboys riding off into the sunset?