Mike Boynton was on the court at Lucas Oil Stadium before the NCAA tournament championship game in April, throwing entry passes to Michigan post men and playing cursory defense against drivers. These are the mundane pregame warmup duties of an assistant coach—the kind of work Boynton left behind for seven seasons from 2017 to ’24.
That’s when he was the head coach at Oklahoma State. It was a star-crossed tenure, pockmarked with bad luck and bad timing before ending in a questionable dismissal. Under Boynton, Oklahoma State was the recipient of what remains the last power-conference postseason ban for NCAA violations; was on the wrong end of a stunning upset in the bizarre bubble tournament of 2021; and was fighting uphill when the Big 12 was at its apex as the toughest conference in the country.
