DURANT, Okla. — Kelly Green, the men’s basketball coach at Southeastern Oklahoma State University, battles relative obscurity by using all the tools at his disposal. Until recently, Green highlighted the campus’s unique geography to sell out-of-state prospects on his Division II program.
“We’re in the city of Durant,” Green would tell recruits, “like Kevin Durant.”
Green felt much more comfortable using this tangential connection back when Kevin Durant was still playing for the Oklahoma City Thunder. But those ties disappeared when Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors in free agency over the summer, forcing Green to scrap his pitch.