Boynton ready to work on team, fans
STILLWATER — Last Saturday, some 24 hours after the Cowboys were knocked out of the NCAA Tournament, Mike Boynton was hanging out at an Oklahoma City shopping mall.
Sort of a tradition; as soon as a season ends, he commits the next day to his family, which usually means changing diapers and jamming to the Wiggles with his young children, while his wife Jenny hits the shops.
And so it was last Saturday, when the day was interrupted by a text
message informing of a team meeting, back in Stillwater, at 3 p.m. Boynton gave thought to driving back, with serious concern about upsetting the boss.
“The meeting’s going to last five minutes,” Boynton said this Saturday morning amid an intimate gathering of reporters. “I don’t need to make my wife mad for that.
“I was not going to risk the venom of my wife on the one day a year that I tell her, ‘I got the kids, you do what you need to do.’”
So, Boynton didn’t budge.
But as the time leading up to the meeting drew nearer, his phone jumped to life with calls – calls he left unanswered, as he sorted through what they must mean. Could Brad Underwood, his other boss, be leaving?
“So where do I go? Where do we all go?” Boynton asked rhetorically. “Twitter. “And there it is.” And there Underwood went, to Illinois.
So Boynton was in the same boat with Oklahoma State basketball fans. Stunned. And they were together again Friday, figuratively, when another stunning development emerged as Boynton replaced Underwood at the head of the program.
Facing seemingly long odds, Boynton wowed in his interview and was quickly installed as OSU’s 20th head coach. The reaction among fans has been mixed, with some on board, some in wait-andsee mode, and still others at the extreme bordering on mutiny over what they perceive as a rushed decision by athletic director Mike Holder.
For one contingent, only favored son Doug Gottlieb would suffice as a quick hire. Beyond that, detractors wonder why Holder couldn’t lure an established head coach, preferably from a wish list of Tom Crean, Archie Miller, Andy Enfield, Tim Jankovich, Buzz Williams, etc.
“My message to the fan base is, keep the faith,” Holder said. “We’re disappointed. We’re hurt. I’m convinced, and the people working with me are convinced, we’ve got the right guy for the long-term.
“Let’s unite behind him and see what happens.”
For Boynton, there’s work to be done. He won the interview. Now he’s got to win over the faithful.
“I don’t want to be insensitive to people’s feelings,” he said. “People are invested into this thing. People believed that the sun was not coming up. It’s up. It’s shining. The sun’s going to shine for a long time. I’m here to tell you, it’s still there.”
Boynton faces a significant to-do list. Hold the current roster together. Re-recruit the recruits. Complete his coaching staff. Reach the fans – all the fans.
By his words, Boynton is clearly a bright-side guy. He’s confident, in his abilities to lead and to coach. And he’s appreciative of this opportunity, rarely afforded assistants at major colleges, although not at all apologetic for getting it, but rather ready to take it and run with it.
“The foundation is very, very solid,” Boynton said. “Got a chance to build on this. I believe wholeheartedly in my abilities to accumulate a really good staff; most important thing I do. Get a really good roster together. Continue to get these guys to buy into representing Oklahoma State University with everything I have. Play your tails off.
“I think people will respect that and respond to that.”
Boynton is charging into action. There’s much to do, ASAP, and already his schedule is flooding. Friday, he shot video spots for OSU’s website and made an appearance across campus at the Cowgirls softball game. He did his best to respond to hundreds of congratulatory text messages, a futile task that carried well into the night.
As of Saturday morning, Boynton hadn’t even phoned his mother to share the good news. He did, however, find time Friday for a moment with his father, Mike Boynton Sr., who was out working, delivering packages for Fed-Ex back home in Brooklyn.
“Very close to my dad still,” he said. “I had to leave here for about 15 minutes and go get a suit and come back for pictures. I thought, ‘I’m going to call dad, this thing will be viral.’
“So I called dad. This is how I opened the call: ‘I got 90 seconds’ – he’s a talker – ‘but I want you to know this, I was just named the head basketball coach at Oklahoma State.’
“And I don’t think he even wanted to talk to me anymore, as much as he wanted to spread the news. He was just screaming; I can’t even hear anything. I’m like, ‘Alright, 90 seconds is up, I love you, I gotta go!’”
Gotta go to work, on the team and the fans.
“To know that as well as people are pulling for me, there are some pulling against me,” Boynton said. “I get that. I understand there are some people who don’t want to see this work out.
“But I challenge those people to give me a chance and watch it happen, because it always has.”
West Region
Nigel Williams-Goss scored 23 points while orchestrating Gonzaga’s efficient offense, and the Zags finally shook their overrated tag by routing Xavier 83-59 on Saturday to reach the Final Four for the first time.
Gonzaga (36-1) has been dogged by criticism through the years despite winning consistently, in part for playing in a weak conference but also for never making the Final Four.
On the cusp of history, the Zags took it head on with a superb all-around game to give coach Mark Few the one missing piece of his resume.
Gonzaga found the range from the perimeter after struggling the first three NCAA games, making 12 of 24 from 3-point range. The defense, a soft spot in the past, shut down the underdog and 11th-seeded Musketeers (24-14) to win the West Region.
The Zags will face the winner between South Carolina and Florida in next week’s Final Four in Arizona.
East Region
Chris Chiozza went end to end and made a 3-pointer at the buzzer to give Florida an 84-83 victory against Wisconsin on Friday night in the first overtime game of this NCAA Tournament.
Nigel Hayes had given the Badgers (27-10) a 2-point lead with 4 seconds left on two free throws. With no timeouts left, the Gators inbounded to Chiozza and the point guard stopped right the arc and dropped in the winner for Florida (27-8).
Wisconsin’s Zak Showalter forced overtime with a leaning 3-pointer off one leg with 2.1 seconds left in regulation as the Badgers wiped out a 12-point deficit in the last 4:15. De’Aaron Fox scored a career-high 39 points as the Kentucky Wildcats beat UCLA 86-75 Friday night in a showdown between two of college basketball’s goliaths for a spot in the South Regional final.
The only No. 2 seed to survive and advance, the Wildcats (32-5) won their 14th straight game. Now the NCAA’s winningest program will play another of basketball’s titans Sunday in top-seeded North Carolina with a trip to yet another Final Four on the line.
The third-seeded Bruins (31-5) still have the most national titles. Yet they leave their third Sweet 16 under coach Steve Alford short of the Elite Eight.
Fans lustily booed Kentucky coach John Calipari in his first game in Memphis since leaving in April 2009 for the Wildcats. Calipari’s latest crop of talented freshmen put Kentucky into a regional final for the sixth time in seven years.
FROM WIRE REPORTS • The Southeastern Conference rivals have never met in a bigger basketball game than they will Sunday at Madison Square Garden. South Carolina is looking for its first Final Four appearance. The Gamecocks have been maybe the biggest surprise of the tournament, beating No. 2 seed Duke and blowing out third-seeded Baylor. Florida is trying to get to the Final Four for the sixth time overall and first since 2014 — and for the first time under coach Mike White.
South Region
• No NCAA Tournament game has ever featured so much history as this regional final. North Carolina and Kentucky have combined for 244 tournament wins with this Kentucky’s 56th NCAA berth, ahead of only North Carolina (48) for the most appearances ever. Only North Carolina has earned more No. 1 seeds (16) than Kentucky’s 12. Nobody has made more Final Fours than North Carolina (19), and now the Tar Heels are a win away from making their 10th Final Four as the No. 1 seed.
FROM WIRE REPORTS