Texas Basketball: 3 high risk, high reward head coaching candidates

High risk, high reward candidates No. 2: Mike Boynton

One potential coaching candidate that CDC and the Longhorns could look into this offseason is a rising star in the college hoops coaching ranks. And it is one that the Longhorns are very familiar with in recent years. Oklahoma State Cowboys head coach Mike Boynton led his team to become one of the surprises in the Big 12 this season.

And Oklahoma State got to the point of facing the Longhorns in the final round of the Big 12 Tournament. That was a game that Texas would win in the end by a score of 91-86, which looked to give the team momentum heading into the “Big Dance”. Instead, both Texas and Oklahoma State were done in the NCAA Tournament by the end of the first weekend of actual game action outside of the play-in games.

Oklahoma State wound up falling short to the 12-seed Oregon State in the Round of 32, and of course Texas was downed by the 14-seed Abilene Christian in the Round of 64.

The only team that Boynton and the Pokes got by in the Big Dance was the stingy 13-seed Liberty Flames in the Round of 64.

Moreover, the results both on the recruiting trail and on the hardwood for Boynton in the past two years has really commanded a lot of attention across the entire college hoops landscape. He landed the top-ranked 2020 recruit in the nation in superstar point guard Cade Cunningham. And he took Oklahoma State to their highest NCAA Tournament seed since the mid-2000s.

Just like Moser, Boynton is a fast-rising name in the college hoops coaching ranks that would be an interesting choice for the Longhorns to replace Smart. They could certainly do worse than Boynton amid coaching candidates that they decide to interview in the coming days and weeks.