As we’ve written about over the past few days here on Pokes Report, Oklahoma State athletic director Chad Weiberg doesn’t want to waste any time in hiring a new men’s basketball coach and would like to have to position filled before next week.

One candidate which seemingly every school with a vacancy is pursuing is Utah State’s Danny Sprinkle. He’s a candidate I mentioned in my very first coaching search article and a coach who’s had a lot of success in a short amount of time. The 47-year-old out of Pullman, WA, is in just his first year with Utah State and has compiled a 27-6 overall record, Mountain West regular season champions, a berth into the 2024 NCAA tournament and was named the Mountain West Coach of the Year. All of that follows a four-year stint at Montana State, his first head coaching job, in which he took the Bobcats to back-to-back NCAA tournaments and two-straight Big Sky Conference titles, as well as a conference tournament championship.

As I mentioned, Sprinkle is in the first year of a five-year contract, which pays him $900,000 a season and increases $25,000 a year. The buyout details are as follows: “ If [Sprinkle] terminates the contract for convenience within the first two years, he owes the university 75% of the remaining salary. If he terminates it during the final three years, he owes 50% of the remaining salary. If Utah State terminates his contract without cause at any point, it owes Sprinkle 75% of the remaining salary.”

Spending $8+ million on Boynton’s contract, plus the money the athletic department has to spend on a new coach and staff shows Weiberg and the athletic department cares and is serious about making sure OSU basketball is successful. We’ve also known for two weeks that in order for Oklahoma State to go out and get a good coach, the athletic department was going to have to buyout a contract. Just shy of $3 million isn’t a bad price to pay to land a very talented, and young, up-and-coming coach.

Sprinkle is already a hot commodity and Utah State needs to do everything it can to keep him in Logan, UT. But after this season with the Aggies, Sprinkle’s name is being thrown around in just about every coaching vacancy, rightfully so, and Chad Weiberg should be doing all he can to get him to Stillwater.

One reason, or rather an example, is current junior forward for the Aggies, Great Osobor, who transferred to Utah State from Montana State following Sprinkle’s hire. I’m not suggesting he would/should come with Sprinkle to Stillwater should he get the job, but let’s just take a look at his numbers. He’s 6-8, 250 pounds, lea