Kanye Clary has spent enough time in hard places to know what it takes to keep moving.
Now at Oklahoma State, the point guard says he feels settled again, and that matters as the Cowboys enter a season with bigger expectations and a coach who is not afraid to put them on his shoulders. Steve Lutz has made it clear what he wants from Clary.
“I expect him to be one of the better point guards across the United States this year,” said Lutz, who isn’t prone to gushing praise. “I’m gonna be really disappointed if he’s not.”
Clary is embracing that challenge after a college career marked by stops, setbacks and a long stretch when he barely wanted anything to do with basketball. His path has included being dismissed from Penn State, a family defamation lawsuit that only recently ended, injuries at Mississippi State and a transfer to OSU that came after assistant James Miller, who recruited him to Starkville, moved to Stillwater before the season even began.
A year ago, Clary became a steady piece for the Cowboys. He led the team in games played with 34 and games started with 31, while averaging 10.6 points and 4.6 assists.
He got sharper as the year went on, too, posting 12.1 points and 4.7 assists from the start of Big 12 play through the end of the Cowboys’ NIT run. He also had his best scoring nights late, including 23 points against UCF and 20 in an NIT first-round win over Davidson.
That finish is part of why Lutz is talking about him the way he is now.
“The guy who brought me here, who believes in me, he sees this,” Clary said.
“Why not chase it?”
For Clary, the chase is tied to something that has been with him since childhood: music.
Growing up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, he was surrounded by it. His parents played it around the house, and his father, Anthony Clary, and mother, Eledra, also had recording studios where Kanye spent hours learning the process.
“You got parents who played music on Saturdays, Sunday mornings while they’re cleaning up and stuff like that,” Anthony Clary said of him and his wife, Eledra.
Kanye Clary remembers the studios as a place where he could disappear into the sound.
“I feel like most people don’t know,” Clary said, “but when you’re in the booth, it’s kind of soundproof when you’re in there. You can’t hear the people outside.
“It’s almost like your own little sanctuary.”
That escape became especially important during his sophomore season at Penn State. After a strong freshman year that helped the Nittany Lions reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in more than a decade, the program changed when Micah Shrewsberry left for Notre Dame and Mike Rhoades took over.
Court filings contend that by December 2023, Clary was a victim of intimidation, retaliation and slander as well as the illegal use of his NIL. The filings allege he was suspended, then dismissed from the team in February 2024 as retribution for speaking out against injustices that players were facing from the coaching staff.
Clary went home and stayed in shape by running and lifting, but he could not bring himself to pick up a basketball for months.
“I couldn’t think of basketball,” he said. “I was angry. I would look at a basketball, get mad.
“I didn’t touch a basketball for maybe seven months.”
Even when his younger brother wanted to shoot in the driveway, Clary resisted at first. Eventually, though, he realized he was passing up a chance to play with him, and that was enough to bring him back to the game.
Slowly, he found his way back.
At Mississippi State, the return was interrupted by an early injury. The situation got even more complicated because Miller, the assistant who had recruited him there, had already moved on to Oklahoma State. That connection helped lead Clary to Stillwater, and now he enters his fifth and final season of college basketball feeling better physically and mentally than he has in years.
He knows the Big 12 will test him. When it does, he knows where he’ll go.
Music.
“It just helps me get out emotions,” Clary said. “With basketball or with any job, you’re gonna have a boss and you’re gonna have things you have to do day in and day out, so it kind of helps me express myself listening to certain things.
“It cleans your body.”
His playlist can swing anywhere from Drake to The Temptations to artists his parents don’t even know. His mom laughed about that.
“It’s funny when he comes home, he’s playing his music, and I’m like, ‘Oh, who is that?’” his mom said. “He introduces me to a lot of new music.”
She added, “It’s all genres of music. It’s rock.
It’s R&B. It’s hip hop.
It’s country.”
His dad sees the same thing from a different angle.
“I think music has always been an environment where he can get away from what’s going on around him.”
As for one perfect song to define this season, Clary couldn’t settle on a title. He opened Apple Music, scrolled through options and landed instead on an artist he admires.
“I love Mariah Carey,” he says.
After a few more tries to find the right song, he settled on a different kind of answer.
“She’s one of my favorites,” he says. “She’s tough.”
Just like Clary.
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