OSU Basketball Transfer Listed Top Ten in Portal; Where Will the Cowboy Land?
Oklahoma State basketball has seen a big shakeup this offseason. It began when the program moved on from head coach Mike Boynton after his seventh season in Stillwater. Now, a head coaching search, which has reportedly been "a mess," has been underway.
It seems Chad Weiberg and Oklahoma State have found their next lead guy, with multiple sources reporting that Western Kentucky's Steve Lutz is a major suitor for the vacancy. Still, the program has seen a fallout with the way things have gone recently.
Boynton was an incredible recruiter, which saw plenty of young talent join the program this past offseason. If Lutz is the hire, his first order of business is retaining as much talent as possible. So far, though, two impact players have already hit the transfer portal -- those being freshman center Brandon Garrison and guard Javon Small.
On3 lists Garrison as the No. 7-ranked transfer out of everyone in the portal. This checks out as Garrison was a McDonald's All-American and was a four-star recruit before joining Boynton's team in Stillwater last offseason.
Of course, a return to Stillwater isn't out of the cards for Garrison, it's likely he makes his move to a new program for a change of scenery.
The likes of Oklahoma and Kansas, both of which offered Garrison in high school, are likely to be in the running to land the talented center. The Sooners have a glaring hole for big-man depth, but they're going to struggle to out-bid other programs when it comes to NIL.
Kansas gives Garrison an opportunity to leave the state, as he was a local prospect when joining Oklahoma State, while developing under an incredible program led by Bill Self.
The 6-foot-11 center averaged 7.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, 1.5 assists and 1.5 blocks in 22.7 minutes per game. Of course, his numbers would have looked much better had he played more minutes per game, but he started 29 of the team's 32 games.
Now, it's time for Weiberg and the Cowboys to secure their next head coach, whether it's Lutz or not, so they can compete for transfers in the portal and gear up for a potential turnaround season. If the fallout for parting ways with Boynton means losing Garrison, the tradeoff could be worth it if the Cowboys' basketball program gains the interest it lost and has the buzz around it that it used to.
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KADE KIMBLE
Kade is a strategic communications student at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, where he also minors in Sports Management. He has been covering the Oklahoma City Thunder with InsidetheThunder.com since the 2022 season after having followed the team since its early days.