Wayne Tinkle after season to forget: ‘We’re going to try to fix it now’
By all accounts, Oregon State’s men’s basketball season was a disaster.
Tinkle begins work with ‘deep roster’ as Oregon State basketball prepares for 2021-22 campaign
Once a college athletic program climbs a mountain, the trek doesn’t end. In some cases, it is only getting started.
That’s what Wayne Tinkle hopes is happening with Oregon State basketball.
Tinkle, soon to begin his eighth season at the OSU helm, will be coming in off the glow of a remarkable late-season run that saw the Beavers reach the Elite Eight in March.
After starting the regular season 11-10, Oregon State reeled off nine victories in 11 games — including three straight to rule the Pac-12 post-season tournament and subsequent wins over Tennessee, Oklahoma State and Loyola Chicago in the NCAA Tournament — before finally being eliminated 67-61 by Houston a step from the Final Four.
The Beavers, who claimed the first Pac-12 Tournament title in program history, became the second No. 12 seed ever to reach the Elite Eight in their first trip there since 1982. They finished the season ranked 20th in the final Coaches’ Poll, the first time they have been ranked in any poll since March 1990, when they were No. 22 in the Associated Press rankings. At 20-13, it marked the second time since 1990 the Beavers have reached 20 wins.
Ex-Beaver greats weigh in on Tinkle, 2020-21 Beavers …
We asked a collection of names familiar to Beaver Nation — most of them former players — for their opinion of this year’s Oregon State team, which faces Loyola of Chicago at 11:40 a.m. PDT in a Sweet Sixteen showdown of underdogs. Their responses, in alphabetical order:
JIMMY ANDERSON (player from 1957-59, assistant coach from 1961-90, head coach from 1990-95):
“I haven’t missed a practice all year, so I have a pretty good handle on why the season has gone like it has. They brought in five new and (coach Wayne Tinkle’s) defensive system is a little complicated.
Cool Hand Luke, the ultimate underdog: ‘We like shocking people’
If anyone on Oregon State’s basketball roster can identify with the underdog, it’s Jared Lucas.
After scoring points at a prodigious rate — almost beyond comprehension — in four years at Los Altos High in Hacienda Heights, Calif., the sharpshooting guard was largely overlooked by Pac-12 schools.
When the media forecast OSU to finish 12th in the Pac-12 before the season, Lucas developed a chip on his shoulder the size of the Rock of Gibraltar.
“Cool Hand Luke” was as big a reason as any why the Beavers came from nowhere to claim the Pac-12 Tournament
The new guys look good as Beavers open 2020-21 slate with win over Bears
I liked a lot of what I saw Wednesday night in our first look at Oregon State in the post-Tres Tinkle era, a 71-63 non-conference win over California in a mostly empty Gill Coliseum.
A few observations …
• Coach Wayne Tinkle unveiled most of the recruiting class he has been so excited about, and the newcomers not only didn’t disappoint, they shined.