Boynton responds to ‘cupcake’ comments

KANSAS CITY, MO. —

After all, he’s heard it all season.

He heard people degrade his hire as Oklahoma State’s basketball coach. He heard those who said his Cowboys weren’t supposed to be any good.

And he certainly heard earlier this week when ESPN bracketologist claimed the Cowboys had seven victories in their nonconference schedule that shouldn’t count toward their NCAA Tournament resume because they “missed an opportunity to maybe lose more games” by not scheduling tougher opponents

Wednesday night, in the Cowboys’ locker room after their 71-60 victory over Oklahoma, Boynton said Lunardi’s comments are an example of people trying to confirm the perception they had of his OSU team before the season began.

“Now, they’re like, ‘Man, they’ve got 19 wins and they won eight games in the Big 12. Something must be up. Oh, they didn’t lose as many games as they could have,’” Boynton said. “I’ve never heard that one before.

“Like, who does that? What were we supposed to do? Try to play in the Big Ten tournament last week?” heard the noise.

For the first time in the eight years since the U.S. Basketball Writers Association named its freshman of the year award the Award, the trophy is going to a Sooner.

Oklahoma freshman point guard was named the Wayman Tisdale Award winner on Wednesday morning, before the Sooners’ loss to Oklahoma State. Young scored 22 points and had five assists in the loss. Young has broken several of Tisdale’s records at Oklahoma during this season, including the mark for most points by a Sooners’ freshman.

Young is leading the country in both scoring and assists. “When you’re put in a category with Wayman, I can’t even put into words how to describe that,” Young said earlier this season. “He’s a legend. I’m honored to be in the same category with those guys in certain statistics.”

Tisdale starred for the Sooners from 1982-85, winning Big Eight Player of the Year and first-team All-America honors in each of his three seasons in Norman.

Last year’s Wayman Tisdale Award winner was UCLA’s

In 2013, Oklahoma State’s won the award, the only other Big 12 player to win the award since it took Tisdale’s name.

Before it took the moniker, Kansas State’s

won in 2008, Texas’ in 2007 and the Longhorns’ in 2002.

As the Sooners stormed back to make Wednesday’s Bedlam game competitive, senior forward

proved why he is OSU’s MVP.

With the Sooners on a 14-2 run and trailing 52-48, a Young steal gave OU a 3-on-1 advantage coming down the floor. Fortunately for the Cowboys, that one was Solomon. He disrupted Young’s oop attempt to a stop that led to a layup on the other end.

One of Young’s primary methods of scoring has been at the free-throw line this season.

Wednesday, he got to the line for only three shots — for three when he was fouled by with 8:00 remaining in the game.

It was tied for the second-fewest free throws Young attempted all season. Last week against Baylor he was just 2 for 2 from the line.

As a team, the Sooners tied a season-low with seven made free throws, missing five.

The Sooners were just 4 of 9 on layups and 2 of 3 on dunks.