Tensions over changes to transportation between the Oklahoma County Detention Center and courthouse reached a peak during a special meeting of the jail’s governing trust on Friday.

Early in April, Sheriff Tommie Johnson III announced he would no longer task any of his own deputies with driving inmates and detainees the half-mile route from the jail to their court hearings, effective May 11. However, from May 11 through June 30, Johnson’s plan included keeping some deputies on the assignment to train and work alongside the jail’s own detention officers.

Along the way, other members of the jail trust have expressed some concerns about the trust’s ability to fully assume the transportation duties.

Oklahoma County’s district attorney, chief public defender, and presiding judge all made rare appearances at the trust meeting on Friday to share some of their own thoughts.

“I want you to consider this decision on whether or not the detention center should take over transport of detainees from the jail to the courthouse, because there is no plan,” District Attorney Vicki Behenna told the trust. “There are no employees at the detention center right now that can fulfill this obligation.”

Behenna also cited concerns that the already understaffed jail would face a worsening staffing situation if it has to pull some of its existing detention officers to provide transportation.

“In my opinion, and the opinion of other lawyers in my office, the indenture requires the Sheriff’s department to do transport,” she added, referencing the indenture which created and assigned control of jail operations to the trust in 2020.

Sheriff Tommie Johnson III cited his own budget concerns as a reason to discontinue the transportation service. His office believes it needs roughly 17 to 19 more deputies inside the courthouse for court security, and it could begin by reassigning

Presiding District Court Judge Sheila Stinson shared her own remarks with the trust, stating that this week alone, three judges had faced death threats. Johnson said his ambition is to have a deputy in every courtroom.

Ultimately, Behenna suggested the trust should not accept the end of the contract and that the sheriff has a duty to continue providing the service, regardless of if the sheriff is paid for the service.

In response, Sheriff Johnson accused the district attorney of being misleading.

“Considering the gross amount of misrepresentation in this section, and relative ease to obtain the correct information, I must assume — I must assume — that this was intentionally misstated to persuade this body to make an ill-informed decision to further the DA’s agenda,” he said.

The district attorney and sheriff eventually got into a back-and-forth.

“Sheriff Johnson, I don’t understand why you have such a visceral reaction to me,” Behenna stated. “If the DA has an agenda, my agenda is public safety.”

Tensions settled some later in the meeting, with trust members still pressed to find an alternative solution.

Trustee Derrick Scobey proposed a solution for the trust and sheriff to work together to find a private partner to operate the transportation service, rather than tasking their own in-house staff to perform the duties.

Sheriff Johnson eventually agreed that his office could help identify a private partner, but that the timeline for gradually taking his deputies out of the task would remain.

Jail administrator Tim Kimrey acknowledged that three of his detention officers would be available starting Monday to work alongside three of Johnson’s deputies to train and learn about the transportation duties while both parties work to find a private partner.

Kimrey said his office had already begun some research on private jail transportation partners, including The GEO Group, TransCor, and LaSalle Corrections.

The trust postponed officially accepting the end of the sheriff’s contract until its next meeting.

For the time being, Oklahoma State will not opt in to the credit line through the Big 12’s recent deal with RedBird.

In case you missed it last week, the Big 12 approved a five-year agreement with RedBird Capital Partners, becoming the first conference to have a league-wide, private capital deal.

The deal provides the Big 12 with a $12.5 million capital infusion while the league’s institutions have the opportunity to opt into a $30 million credit line that would have to be paid back with a “double-digit” interest rate, according to ESPN.

It doesn’t sound like many (if any) schools will take RedBird up on that deal, and that includes Oklahoma State. OSU athletic director Chad Weiberg spoke with Dave Hunziker in a podcast that released Friday, where Weiberg cleared things up from the OSU side of things.

“First of all, I give commissioner (Brett) Yormark a lot of credit for providing opportunities to the schools to look at,” Weiberg said. “He is an innovator. He pushes the envelope. He’s not afraid of trying new things to better the conference and all the member institutions. So, I think there’s a little bit of a misconception on this. This isn’t a private equity deal. There’s no ownership stake or control in the conference they’re taking. It’s more of a private investment opportunity. RedBird is a huge global entity. They’ve got a lot of partnerships. The conference office will get out of it some money to be able to invest in some other business entities, take an investment in those to try to grow revenues from a different revenue stream. I think that’s something that’s worth exploring in this time that we’re in. And then the schools have the option to opt into a line of credit through that, and that’s up to each institution. It doesn’t effect the deal with the conference itself.

“As of right now, that is something that Oklahoma State will not do at this point. Should we need something like that, we believe we have other avenues or levers we could pull first before that. But again, I applaud the commissioner for making those options available to us.”

Weiberg and Hunziker also got into some other financial matters, like the report last week that the Big Ten distributed a record $1.37 billion to its 18 members in the 2024-25 fiscal year — a jump of about $500 million. The SEC announced in February that it had distributed more than $1 billion to its 16 members for the fiscal year.

So, dividing that up, that’s about $76 million on average for each Big Ten school and about $62.5 million for each SEC school.

The Big 12 hasn’t announced its allocations yet, but Weiberg said he expects the average Big 12 distribution to come in “north of $35 million.”

“That’s a wide discrepancy,” Weiberg said. “It’s a wider discrepancy than we’ve ever seen in the history of college athletics.”

To try to level that playing field as much as possible, Weiberg said OSU has asked all of its programs to cut expenses by 10%, OSU has increased ticket prices and the Boys From Oklahoma concerts have also helped with that.

It’s an uphill battle, but Weiberg noted that OSU has had to compete with the likes of Texas, one of the highest-funded athletic departments in the country, for years.

“There’s a bigger discrepancy now between what some conferences are getting and what others are than there ever has been before,” Weiberg said. “So, that presents unique challenges in terms of just the level playing field. At the end of the day, when you’re in a competition, part of what makes the competition interesting is when you’re trying to compete on a level playing field. Now, I say that acknowledging that there’s never an exactly level playing field — I don’t care if its the NFL or Major League Baseball or whatever, there’s not that. But I think to keep it interesting, there needs to be some version of a level playing field, and that’s getting very tilted in this environment.

“We’ve competed before. We’ve never been the highest-resourced institution in our conference or in the country or anything like that, and we’ve competed at a very high level in all of our sports, from football through all the other sports. Obviously the 55 national championships are a great indicator of that.”

Chet Holmgren and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander each scored 22 points as the Oklahoma City Thunder beat the Los Angeles Lakers 125-107 on Thursday night to take a 2-0 lead in the Western Conference semi-final series.

Ajay Mitchell had 20 points and Jaren McCain added 18 for the defending champions, who improved to 6-0 in the playoffs. The Lakers will host Game 3 on Saturday.

The Lakers again were without scoring champion Luka Doncic, who is out indefinitely with a strained left hamstring. They also were missing forward Jarred Vanderbilt, the reserve forward who dislocated the pinkie finger on his right hand during the second quarter of Game 1.

The Lakers also had three players finish with five fouls, limiting their ability to be aggressive late in the game.

Lakers guard Austin Reaves, who struggled with his shot in Game 1, scored 31 points on 10-for-16 shooting in Game 2. LeBron James, coming off a 27-point effort in Game 1, followed that up with 23.

With the Lakers up 63-61 early in the third quarter, Gilgeous-Alexander got tied up with Reaves and was called for his fourth foul. Upon review, it was upgraded to a flagrant 1 for Gilgeous-Alexander’s follow through. Oklahoma City’s Alex Caruso was called for a technical foul as the situation was being sorted out.

Gilgeous-Alexander left the game with the Lakers up 65-61, but the Thunder rallied and took control without him. On a fast break, Holmgren found a trailing Jaylin Williams, who hit a three-pointer and was fouled. His free throw put the Thunder up 85-74.

The Thunder outscored the Lakers 32-15 while Gilgeous-Alexander was out in the third quarter to take a 93-80 lead into the fourth. The Lakers cut Oklahoma City’s lead to five in the fourth quarter before the Thunder pulled away again.

Lakers coach Redick criticises referees

Lakers coach JJ Redick criticised the way James is officiated and Reaves complained about treatment from the referees after their defeat.

A number of Lakers players gathered around the referees at midcourt after the game and Reaves voiced his frustration to crew chief John Goble. He felt that while players were jockeying for position during a jump ball during the game, Goble crossed the line.

“At the end of the day, we’re grown men and I just didn’t feel like he needed to yell in my face like that,” Reaves said. “I told him that. I wasn’t disrespectful. I told him if I did that to him first, I would’ve gotten a tech. I feel like the only reason I didn’t get a tech was because he knew he was in the wrong. I felt disrespected.”

Reaves, Marcus Smart and Jaxson Hayes all finished with five fouls. The Thunder took 26 free throws to 21 for the Lakers.

Redick doesn’t think a team with the No 1 seed and the reigning MVP in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander needs extra help from the officials.

“They’re hard enough to play,” Redick said. “They’re hard to play, and you’ve got to be able to just call them. They foul. They do foul.”

James, still effective at attacking the rim at age 41, has attempted just five throws in two games in the series.

“LeBron has the worst whistle of any star player I’ve ever seen. The smaller guys, because they can be theatrical, they typically draw more fouls, and the bigger players that are built like LeBron, it’s hard for them,” Redick said. “They get clobbered, and he got clobbered again tonight a bunch.”

On several occasions, Lakers players were incredulous after calls – or no-calls – from the crew. While the Lakers talked to the officials during and after the game, the Thunder players stayed calm. Redick believes that might have helped them.

“I think some of the reason that they’re officiated the way they are is because they don’t show emotion,” Redick said. “And that’s a credit to them. I mean, they really take the emotion out of the game. They’re super tight-knit. They don’t complain to the officials, and maybe they’re the beneficiaries of that, I don’t know.”

Pistons continue winning streak to take 2-0 lead

Cade Cunningham had 25 points and 10 assists and Tobias Harris scored 21 points as the Detroit Pistons beat the Cleveland Cavaliers 107-97 on Thursday night to take a 2-0 lead in their second-round series.

Game 3 is on Saturday in Cleveland, where the Cavs were 4-0 in the first round against Toronto.

The top-seeded Pistons have won five straight games since Orlando put them on the brink of elimination in the first round.

Donovan Mitchell scored 31 points and Jarrett Allen had 22 points and seven rebounds, bouncing back from a poor performance in Game 1 for the fourth-seeded Cavs.

James Harden, though, missed 10 of 13 shots and was limited to 10 points. Harden had four turnovers, including one with 33 seconds left when the Cavs trailed by just six.

Cleveland’s Max Strus scored just three points after he had 19 in the series opener. The Cavaliers went 0 for 11 from 3-point range in the fourth quarter, with Strus having four of the misses.

Detroit’s Duncan Robinson had 17 points, making 5-9 three-pointers, and Daniss Jenkins came off the bench to score 14 points, his third straight game in double figures.

Cleveland made the first shot and didn’t lead again until Evan Mobley’s dunk put the visitors ahead 81-79 early in the fourth quarter.

The Pistons led by 11 points in the first quarter and 14 in the second quarter, but they didn’t pull away until the final minutes.

The Cavs scored the first six points of the final quarter and Detroit responded with plays at both ends of the court.

Robinson had a tiebreaking three-pointer with 9:40 left and Cunningham made a three-pointer to put the Pistons ahead by nine points with 2:12 to go, sealing the victory.

The Pistons also won Game 1 by 10 points with both Cunningham and Mitchell scoring 23 points.

Cavs reserve guard Sam Merrill missed Game 2 with a hamstring injury after he was hurt in in the series opener. He averaged 12.8 points during the regular season and scored in double digits twice in the seven-game, first-round series against the Raptors.