‘Old soul’ von Oelhoffen leads the way for Beaver women
Talia breaks to the basket in the Beavers’ Civil War win over Oregon (courtesy Dave Nishitani/OSU athletics)
The weight of the world is not on the shoulders of Talia von Oelhoffen.
It may seem that way to Beaver Nation, and at times, it may seem that way to Oregon State’s star sophomore guard.
Last weekend in the Bay Area, the 5-11 von Oelhoffen had the worst shooting series of her college career, making 7 of 29 attempts from the field as the Beavers suffered excruciatingly tough losses to third-ranked Stanford (63-60) and California (64-62).
Toward the end of both games, it appeared von Oelhoffen — perhaps taking it upon herself to drum something up for the offensively challenged Beavers — forced up several shots that weren’t close to connecting. As their best scorer and shooter, it would make sense, especially since Oregon State returned only four players from its team a year ago.
“Talia has battled feeling pressure and carrying the weight of feeling like you need to do everything for a team, because you’re the most veteran player on the team,” coach Scott Rueck theorizes. “That’s a lot to carry. Helping her navigate that and helping her understand her role is rewarding for me. And I think she is adapting very well.”
There is little doubt that opposing defenses recognize her as Oregon State’s premier scoring threat.
“Teams face-guard or pressure me a lot,” von Oelhoffen says. “Coming off ball screens, I see two or three defenders. It’s definitely tough.”
It may have been just a rough weekend for Talia, who gets a chance to help right the ship for Oregon State (11-10 overall, 3-7 in Pac-12 action) as it plays host to Utah Friday and Colorado Sunday at Gill Coliseum.
Nobody appreciates the team leader more than her coach.
“Talia has stepped up in every way she knows how to be everything that this program needs,” Rueck says. “We’re lucky to have her.”
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Oregon State first got von Oelhoffen under unusual circumstances, made possible by the pandemic of 2020.
Her Chiawana High team in Pasco, Wash., had basically shut down for the season, with the schedule rolled back to a partial season in May. Talia had already earned her high school diploma. She had signed a letter of intent to Oregon State. Hey, coach Rueck. Mind if I arrive a little early?
Joining the Beavers at midseason, von Oelhoffen stepped into a role as the team’s first reserve, averaging 11.3 points — second on the team behind senior Aleah Goodman — while shooting .440 from the field and a superb .434 from 3-point range. It was a splendid college debut for a youngster who was supposed to be enjoying her final few months as a high schooler.
Talia was born for the situation.
Talia von Oelhoffen has her teammates’ full attention as she gathers them for a pow wow (courtesy Dave Nishitani/OSU athletics)
Her mother, the former Tondi Redden, was a national pentathlon (indoor heptathlon) champion in high school and a four-year starter in basketball at Hawaii. Her father, Kimo von Oelhoffen, played 14 years as a defensive lineman in the NFL for the Bengals, Steelers, Jets and Eagles. She has two older sisters, Jalyn and Kamri, who helped introduce her to sports of all kind.
“Being the youngest in that family, especially with my parents being athletes as well, it was a competitive environment,” Talia says. “I played all kinds of different sports. I always knew basketball was going to be my main one, but I enjoyed playing the others. It was fun. It taught me to competitive.
“My mom kind of steered my older sisters into basketball, and I followed them. We grew up around basketball. We followed in our mom’s footsteps. I grew up in the gym watching my sisters play.”
Talia developed into the family’s chosen one. By the time her senior year started, she was one of the nation’s top prospects, ranked No. 14 by Prospects Nation and a Jordan Brand Classic All-American. She had narrowed her college choices to Connecticut, Stanford, Oklahoma, UCLA and Oregon State.
“It came down to Stanford and Oregon State,” von Oehlhoffen says.
The Beavers had an ace in the hole. Jamie Weisner, the Pac-12 Player of the Year and a driving force behind their Final Four appearance in 2016, is a native of Clarkston, a two-hour drive east of Pasco. Jamie had a trainer in the Pasco area during Talia’s sophomore year at Chiawana.
“Jamie would work out with my trainer, so I’d work out with her,” Talia says. “I got to talk to her a lot. I had followed her in high school, and I had watched what she did and what she helped build at Oregon State. That put the Beavers on my radar.”
Because of Covid, Talia never got an official visit to Corvallis. She and her mother drove down to a game during Talia’s junior season.
“It was kind of spur of the moment, a one- or two-day trip that wasn’t planned,” she says. It didn’t take long for her to commit.
“It felt like home here,” she says. “There is a family environment, which is undeniable in my relationship with the coaches. It’s so authentic. I got along with the girls on the team. The coaches, the environment, the location close so my family is able to drive to games — that all played a part in it.”
Talia burst onto the scene during Oregon State’s abbreviated 2020-21 season, a backcourt complement to Goodman. After von Oelhoffen joined the team, the Beavers went 8-2 to close the regular season and advanced to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“She was a catch-and-shoot player playing off of Aleah that season,” Rueck says. “Aleah and our inside game took all the (defensive) attention. Because of that, Talia got a lot of clean looks. That team executed at the highest level offensively, due to having a senior point guard. It hasn’t been that easy since.”
“I didn’t have any expectations at all,” Talia says of her first taste of college ball. “I just came in ready to play basketball. That was my whole mindset. If I played 40 minutes or zero, I was just going to take the experience as it was. I ended up having a big impact. I was really happy I was able to do that.”
During the 2021-22 season — her true freshman campaign — von Oelhoffen shared a leadership role with several older players. The Beavers finished with a disappointing 17-14 record and lost to UCLA in the quarterfinals of the WNIT. Talia was the Beavers’ lone selection on the Pac-12’s 15-player all-conference team, leading them in scoring (13.7 points) and assists (3.0). She shot .403 from the field, .362 from 3-point range and .888 from the line.
“People saw me have success (the first half-season) and thought I had it all figured out,” she says. “But it was different going into my real freshman year, where there were expectations. You have a summer to prepare, but my first year, I just played free. If I missed shots or made mistakes, I was supposed to.
“Last year was pretty tough. I was looked at as a vet in some ways, but I was still very much new to it and learning a lot.”
Did she feel pressure?
“A little bit,” she concedes. “I tried not to feel it, but at times, yes. Everyone was wondering, what’s next? It was a bit of an adjustment. We had some senior leaders who did a good job. My role was to provide a little bit of leadership, but I was going through normal freshman things. I did my best to balance it.”
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There was an exodus of players after last season, with such as Taylor Jones (Texas), Greta Kampschroeder (Michigan) and Kennedy Brown and Taya Corosdale (Duke) heading elsewhere. With so many teammates abandoning ship, von Oelhoffen stayed.
“I want to make it clear that I made a commitment to this program, this university and this fan base, and I’m not going anywhere,” she wrote on Twitter. “I came to OSU to cut nets, and I’m still chasing that goal.”
It was a show of support Rueck desperately needed.
Assistant coach Jenny Huth confers with von Oelhoffen (courtesy Dave Nishitani/OSU athletics)
“We didn’t make the NCAA Tournament last year, which was disappointing,” says Rueck, in his 13th season at the OSU helm. “Players come here with that expectation. All of us have it.
“So now we have transfers (after last season). It’s, ‘OK, what’s next?’ Talia came out with a supportive statement, saying she is all in with the program. Everybody appreciated that. It led to many great conversations about this year, reflective of last year. Losing all the transfers put her in a leadership role, which is a lot to ask of a sophomore.”
As the Beavers’ undeniable leader this season, von Oelhoffen leads the team in scoring (15.1 points) and assists (3.4) and averages 5.6 rebounds while shooting .391 from the field and .314 from 3-point range. She ranks seventh in the Pac-12 in scoring and second in free-throw percentage (.875) for all games. The numbers aren’t as good in conference games, in which she averages 11.8 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists. She is shooting .298 from the field and .266 from beyond the arc in those games, percentages well below her talent level.
It has been a trying season for everyone, as the Beavers have struggled to close out conference games. They lost 72-69 at Arizona after leading by 12 with three minutes to go. And then, last week’s results.
“We are struggling with consistency,” Talia offers. “It is a very young, very new group. That’s an old excuse at this point, but it has contributed to how up and down we are sometimes.”
“One of the hurdles for us has been late-game execution,” Rueck says. “That is typical of a team that is relatively new being put together and going against excellent teams. Because of that, we haven’t executed quite as well. We have gone into ‘iso’ situations, which against good teams are going to be tough shots.”
Talia, guards Shalexxus Aaron and Noelle Mannen and freshman post Raegan Beers are the only Beavers to play all 21 games. And now, eight regular-season games remain.
“We haven’t really been at full strength, but we are starting to figure it out,” von Oelhoffen says. “We have great stretches. In the Stanford game, we proved we can compete with anyone in the country. We have been right there. Oregon and UCLA — wins over two ranked wins.
“It’s just getting up for teams that aren’t ranked and being at our best all the time going into this eight-game stretch, because we need all the wins we can get.”
It may be that scoring help is on the way. Timea Gardiner, the prize 6-3 freshman, missed most of the season with an injury but has averaged 11.8 points on .553 shooting in 22 minutes in the five games she has played. Beers has come off the bench for 13.5 points and 8.2 rebounds while shooting .574 from the field. And senior point guard Bendu Yeany had 15- and 16-point games in the Bay Area.
“Bendu has been stepping up, hitting shots,” von Oelhoffen says. “If she can continue to be a threat, that will help open things up. And Rae (Beers) and Jelena (Mitrovic, the center) drawing double-teams.
“We are best when we play loose. We need to play a little bit faster. We are really slow getting into things. That’s something we have to figure out. We are super talented offensively. We just have to figure out how we can make things click.”
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Rueck expresses admiration as he talks about coaching von Oelhoffen.
“Talia is an amazing human being,” he says. “I’m impressed with how mature she is. She is an old soul who understands the inner workings of a team. You have to give her parents and grandparents a ton of credit. They’re a sports family. Because of that, she views everything as a coach sees it, which is fun.
“I’m asking her, ‘What do you think we should do?’ And her play calls through a game are typically right on point. More than anything, she is a winner. She is a gamer, with a super mature perspective and knowledge of the game.
“And she has a professional work ethic. She was in the gym two or three times a day in the offseason, almost too much. But she demonstrated a commitment, and stepped into a leadership role where she took care of the freshman and the transfers during the offseason. For a sophomore, that is remarkable.”
Talia — whose boyfriend is Tyler Bilodeau on the OSU men’s team — is co-majoring in business and psychology and is a junior academically.
“I hope to be able to graduate with my double major by the end of next (academic) year, and then get started on my Masters,” she says.
First, though, she is looking forward to a summer trip to Panama as part of Oregon State’s “Courts for Kids” program. About 15 OSU student-athletes of various sports — von Oelhoffen and Beers represent women’s basketball — will visit an indigenous community there.
“We get to build a multi-use sports court for that community, which has nothing like that,” Talia says. “We will be staying with them and living their lifestyle for eight or nine days.
“I’m super excited. I have never experienced anything like that before — a chance to get immersed in the culture. It is going to be a great experience for us.”
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