Wayne Tinkle after season to forget: ‘We’re going to try to fix it now’
Forward Glenn Taylor Jr. was a Pac-12 All-Freshman team pick this season (courtesy OSU sports communications)
By all accounts, Oregon State’s men’s basketball season was a disaster.
The captain of the Hindenburg, Wayne Tinkle, acknowledges as much.
“A big disappointment, for sure,” the Beavers’ head man says as he drives with wife Lisa from Corvallis for a “quick there-and-back” trip to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where the Tinkles plan to build a vacation home. “Coming off of last year, we had big expectations.”
A year ago, the Beavers were riding high on the hog, in the midst of a remarkable month-long run from the Pac-12 championship to the Elite Eight. Athletic director Scott Barnes rewarded Tinkle with a pay raise and a three-year extension, taking his contract through the 2026-27 campaign.
In the conference’s preseason media poll last October, Oregon State was tied for fourth with Arizona (Oregon was second, behind only UCLA). The surprise was league-wide, then, when the Beavers finished the season 3-28 overall, 1-19 in Pac-12 play and 0-12 on the road.
The overall win percentage was .097 — worst in the 121-year history of the program, even worse than the .156 posted during Tinkle’s third season at OSU (5-27 in 2016-17), and worse than the previous low of .194 set in 2007-08 (6-25), a team coached by Jay John and interim replacement Kevin Mouton.
So what happened?
“A lot of things went wrong,” says Tinkle, 56, Oregon State’s head coach for the past eight seasons. “The team not being able to come together, a lot of close losses, injuries. The last five weeks, we had seven or eight players to work with.
“It was a very tough season. We’re going to try to fix it now. We built (the program) up a couple of times. We’re comfortable that we will be able to get things righted and get it back to where we need to be.”
The Beavers lost their captain and All-Pac-12 selection Ethan Thompson and starting small forward Zach Reichle, both seniors, along with reserve shooting guard Tariq Silver from the 2020-21 squad. (Silver was a starter and the No. 3 scorer for Austin Peay this season, averaging 10.1 points while shooting .369 from the field and .343 from 3-point range.)
Oregon State returned a strong nucleus of contributors from the previous team, including starters Warith Alatishe, the MVP of the Pac-12 Tournament; All-Pac-12 tourney selection Jarod Lucas and 7-1 center Roman Silva, along with key reserves Maurice Calloo, Gianni Hunt and Rodrique Andela. Tinkle added six transfers — center Chol Marial, forward Ahmad Rand and guards Dashawn Davis, Dexter Akanno, Xzavier Malone-Key and Tre’ Williams — along with freshman forward Glenn Taylor Jr.
Forward Rodrique Andela, who missed most of the 2021-22 season with a broken foot, figures to be a key player for the Beaver next season (courtesy OSU sports communications)
It sounded promising. Did Tinkle have a good feeling about his club heading into the season?
“I had concerns,” Tinkle says. “One of my close friends reminded me the other day, with the amount of new guys and leadership we lost, it left us needing to develop that leadership and get the chemistry established. With all the things that impacted us, it kept us from getting there.”
Was there a chemistry issue?
“It was obvious we were never able to come together as we had in years past,” Tinkle says.
Was there a selfishness issue?
“We weren’t united,’ he says. “Whether it’s selfishness or chemistry, we didn’t come together. Year in and year out, we’ve had groups that put the team first. You can look at expectations. Was that part of it, both as team and individual? Was it the new guys wanting to come in and put their stamp on the squad?”
Thompson and Reichle had been instrumental with their leadership, policing the locker room and guiding young players in the right direction. That was gone, and the void was hard to fill.
“Roman did a great job, and Maurice and Jarod tried to give us leadership,” Tinkle says. “There’s no doubt, though, that we missed (Thompson and Reichle) in that department.”
Defense was a bigger problem than offense for the Beavers. Opponents shot .479 from the field and .359 from 3-point range and averaged 78 points a game — worst in the Pac-12 in all three categories. They were also last in the conference in rebound percentage at minus 5.6 per contest.
It didn’t help that, seven games in, Andela broke his foot and was lost for the season. The 6-8, 250-pound bruiser had started only four games and averaged only 13.4 minutes, but Tinkle considered him an important piece for rebounding, defense and leadership issues.
“He was such a great locker room guy, a quiet leader,” the coach says.
Nine games in, Hunt left the team for undisclosed reasons, perhaps because he had lost his starting point guard job to Davis, who had been a first-team JC All-American at Trinity Valley in Athens, Texas. Hunt, a 6-4 junior who played a pivotal role in the Beavers’ late-season surge a year ago, remained in school but dropped out of the program.
“Gianni had so much experience,” Tinkle says. The departure of Andela and Hunt “were bigger factors than we initially thought they would be.”
Davis was OSU’s No. 2 scorer at 10.9 points per game, led the Pac-12 in assists (5.5) and was sensational at times, scoring 27 of his 31 points after intermission in the Beavers’ 94-91 double-overtime loss to Southern Cal on February 24. He shot poorly from 3-point range (.188) and the free-throw line (.655), though, and wasn’t the leader Beaver coaches had envisioned. Davis has indicated he will enter the transfer portal.
Just as problematic was the decline in performance of Alatishe, Oregon State’s second-best player (behind Thompson) through the second half of the 2020-21 season. The 6-7 Alatishe, who averaged 9.5 points and 8.6 rebounds and shot .509 from the field as a junior, was a preseason All-Pac-12 pick going into his senior campaign. He never got into a flow, shooting .523 from the field while averaging 9.0 points and only 5.1 rebounds, and he shot an embarrassing .396 from the foul line. His missed layup at the end of regulation would have sent the first Oregon game into overtime; the Ducks won 78-76.
“Warith was clearly not 100 percent healthy throughout the season, but he stayed with it,” Tinkle says. “He tried to give us all he could.”
Lucas topped the Beavers in scoring (13.5), shot a gaudy .386 from 3-point range and led the league in free throw percentage (.871). Opponents, however, focused their defense on shutting him down, and he didn’t get as many open looks as he did the previous season. He seemed frustrated at times and, though he always hustled at both ends, bickered with coaches on occasion.
Malone-Key (back), Williams (knee) and Johnson (concussion) all missed most of the second half of the season.
“We were really high on (Malone-Key and Williams),” Tinkle says. “They never hit their stride. We love Isaiah’s potential. He plays his tail off, can rebound at both ends. We expect him to be a big factor for us going forward.”
Marial, a 7-2 shot-blocker who transferred to OSU from Maryland, was academically ineligible. Without him, Malone-Key, Williams, Johnson and sometimes Alatishe, the Beavers were left with eight scholarship players through the last six weeks.
OSU coaches were heartened by one important aspect of the season. As it wound down, even as confidence suffered and aspirations imploded, the Beaver players never quit. Over the last month of season, they lost to California 63-61, to then No. 11 Southern Cal 94-91 in double overtime, then back-to-back games against Washington State by 103-97 in overtime and 71-67.
“I’m really proud of the group that consistently stayed locked in and tried to move that thing forward,” Tinkle says. “The last five or six weeks, we could never go 5-on-5 at practice because we didn’t have enough bodies. I loved the way they continued to battle.”
The biggest individual bright spot was the play of Taylor, who averaged 6.9 points and 2.8 rebounds and moved into the starting lineup for the last 12 games. The 6-8 small forward was named to the Pac-12’s All-Freshman team.
“Glenn had a great year,” Tinkle says. “The neat thing in our recruitment of him, we told him everything had to be earned and his role might be minimal to start, but to come prepared to compete. He played so well that he earned a starting role and became one of our best players. I love his toughness. He played through some of his mistakes, but was always locked in and tried to give us everything we asked of him.”
The 6-8 Rand had impressive moments off the bench, averaging 4.9 points and 2.4 rebounds who shot .539 from the field, made 9 of 22 attempts from beyond the arc and blocked a team-high 33 shots despite playing only 13.4 minutes a game.
“Ahmad is a good athlete who impacts the game defensively,” Tinkle says. “He had never shot the ball from 3, but we told him if he worked on it and took good shots, OK. More than that, he has to be a force in and around the paint and rebound a little more for us.”
A couple of people have mentioned to me that this season reminds them of the 2016-17 campaign, when the Beavers went 5-27 after Tinkle had taken them to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1990 the previous season. In 2016-17, they had lost a great player in Tres Tinkle, who was injured six games into the season and never returned. Stevie Thompson Jr., missed some early games, too, and the outmanned Beavers managed only one Pac-12 win — 68-67 over Utah.
“Before the season, we had also lost (point guard) Malcolm Duvivier, the only player who started my first two years,” Tinkle says. “And our sixth man, (7-foot center) Cheikh N’diaye, missed most of the season after shoulder surgery. But the difference between that team and (the ’21-22 Beavers), that group tried to battle and continued to let us coach them. We’d compete for 32 minutes but just didn’t have enough.”
Tinkle doesn’t want to throw this year’s roster under the bus, but it’s obvious — the coaches and players just didn’t connect. How much responsibility should the coaches receive for the poor results?
“We’re the leadership of the program,” Tinkle told me. “We put the team together. There were a lot of factors out of our control, but we have to take full responsibility.”
The coaching staff will get a major shakeup. The contract of veteran assistant coach Kerry Rupp, 68, will not be renewed. And assistant coach Stevie Thompson Sr. will remain with the program in a non-coaching role. It means that Tinkle will be looking for two new hires to complement young assistant Marlon Stewart.
Where does this leave Oregon State for the 2022-23 season? Tinkle is working overtime to try to get things turned back the right way.
Four players were listed as seniors this season — Silva, Alatishe, Calloo and Malone-Key. Malone-Key has no more eligibility. Silva, Alatishe and Calloo could all get one more season (Covid-related) but have graduated and will likely move on.
Tinkle wouldn’t reveal his thoughts on the rest of the returnees. Beginning Monday, he will have individual exit meetings with each of his players to discuss the future and “get a grip on where we’re at.”
“We have to clean some things up with our roster, make sure we have the right group together,” Tinkle says. “We don’t know yet who that will include.”
Here is an educated guess: Andela, Taylor, Rand, Johnson and Akanno will be back to form a backbone of next year’s team. I’d love to see Lucas — one of my favorite Beaver players to watch in recent years — return to provide senior leadership and some of the nation’s best perimeter shooting, but I get the impression he’ll choose to join the transfer portal.
It’s possible Hunt could return to the program, which would almost surely mean a starting role at point guard. Tinkle is noncommittal as to whether he believes that will happen.
The OSU coach hopes Marial — who attended class all year and practiced with the Beavers during the season — will be ruled eligible this spring by the NCAA. Tinkle says Marial can be a contributor next season, especially at the defensive end.
“Chol has done well academically,” Tinkle says. “He has had a plan to follow for the NCAA, and we believe he will be with us next season. He has had chronic shin splints and has undergone surgery to alleviate it. We’ll take the next six months to try to get him to full health. He has a 7-6 wingspan, is a good passer and he can shoot the ball. We gave up a lot of field goals at the rim this season. He’s a guy who can definitely help change that.”
If Lucas chooses to transfer, that leaves five to seven veterans to return: Andela, Taylor, Rand, Johnson and Akanno and — in a perfect world — Mariol and Hunt. Add four recruits — two of them signed to letters of intent, two of them verbal commits.
The signees:
• Tyler Bilodeau, a 6-8, 215-pound forward from Kennewick, Wash., who is one of the most decorated recruits in recent Oregon State history. Bilodeau, the state of Washington’s Mr. Basketball and Gatorade Player of the Year as a senior this season, averaged 22.7 points and 10.3 rebounds in leading Kamiakin High of Kennewick to fourth place in the state 4A (highest division) tournament. I think Bilodeau — a 3.92 student — starts as a true freshman alongside Taylor at forward next season.
“His physical toughness is going to allow him to contribute early on,” Tinkle says. “He can play inside and outside offensively. He can step out and shoot it, and he can shoot (inside) over both shoulders, rare for young guys. He’s a fighter — a tough, high-character kid who plays his tail off.”
• Michael Rataj, a 6-6, 200-pound forward from Augsburg, Germany who played for the German U15, U16 and U18 national teams. This season, he started at small forward for the national junior team. Rataj averaged 15.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 2.4 steals for the FIBA U18 European Challengers and was the second-youngest player to compete in the EuroCup this season.
“Michael is one of the top forwards in his age group in Europe,” Tinkle says. “He is playing for three teams (in Germany) and is getting great experience. He’s very mature, a good body, a physical kid, very versatile for a kid that young (18).”
Rataj should instantly be a top reserve competing for major playing time next season.
The commits:
• Nick Krass, a 6-4, 185-pound guard from Biloxi, Miss., who decommitted from Ole Miss. Krass, who averaged 22 points as a senior to help St. Patrick High reach the state semifinals, is exactly what the Beavers need — a shooter and ball-handler. It will be no surprise if he plays right away.
• Jayden Stevens, a 6-7 1/2, 190-pound forward from Spokane. Stevens, who averaged 19.8 points as a senior for Gonzaga Prep, might take awhile to adjust to the collegiate level, but OSU coaches are high on his potential.
There will be at least a scholarship or two available, no matter how the returnees shake out. Tinkle will be looking to add veteran players from the transfer portal, especially at guard and the post positions.
“I’m not going to make any predictions on how many wins we’ll have next year,” he says. “But I think the fans are going to fall in love with our team. This is going to be a team that plays together, plays the right way.”
Does Tinkle worry that the unseemly results of this past season will affect the interest of Beaver Nation?
“I would hope not,” he says. “They don’t have to look back too far to see the incredible things we’ve done.”
The 2021 finish, indeed, was incredible. The full eight years of the Tinkle era (116-136 overall, 53-95 in league play) have been less than that. I’m a huge fan of Tinkle as a person — he’s the kind of man every Beaver fan should appreciate — and I believe he is a good coach. A bounce-back season in 2022-23 will be important to prove as much to those who doubt.
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