Brad Underwood Didn't Even Know Mike Boynton Was Offering Cade Cunningham
STILLWATER – The uncertainty of the upcoming fall sports seasons, and possibly the winter sports seasons as well, is a little unnerving. With the Big Ten and the Pac 12 altering their seasons to play conference games only, as well as talks for the college basketball season to be moved up a couple of weeks, we likely won’t see normal sports for a while.
However, there’s still plenty to talk about, especially with a top five recruiting class now on campus training with a group of young and talented returners for Cowboy basketball.
As we’ve written about a few times over the past week, Cowboy basketball made Cade Cunningham, the No. 1 prospect in the 2020 class, available to speak with the media. It lasted nearly an hour with several great quotes and stories on his relationship with Mike Boynton, the team and why he stuck with Oklahoma State.
One of the best stories, however, was about the time he was offered. We’ve all heard the basics: Mike Boynton was a young assistant coach for Brad Underwood and was in Texas when he saw this freshman practicing and he offered him.
Cunningham went into the details of the story and it’s a great one.
"It started my freshman year [of high school] in a practice before any games,” said Cunningham. “I hadn't played any high school games yet. We were in our preseason workouts, which is really just conditioning. We played a little bit of pickup ball. I had a teammate, Kyler Edwards, he's at Texas Tech right now, he was the one that was getting all the recruitment. I didn't come in thinking to even be recruited. I was just a freshman. [Mike Boynton] came in, he watched me a couple times and he walked up to me and just offered me. He was like, 'I want to extend you a scholarship to Oklahoma State University.' And I was like, 'What?' So, he told me later on that Brad Underwood didn't even know that he was offering. Now looking back, when I talked to coach Underwood afterwards, coach Underwood was even like, 'Well I guess coach Boynton really likes you. I guess we're going to recruit you.' It's just a crazy story when he believed in me so much early on. I'm super thankful for that."
Cunningham will most likely end up playing just one season in Stillwater, his freshman season. I don’t think there’s any doubt that just the one season in Stillwater will pay dividends in the future for Cowboy basketball, which you can say about his freshman year in high school as well.
