Wayne Tinkle has Oregon State on the road to respectability
As he toured Oregon State's recreation center with a potential recruit this past summer, newly hired Beavers coach Wayne Tinkle felt a tap on his shoulder.
A student Tinkle had never met before introduced himself and requested a tryout.
Other coaches might have rolled their eyes at an intramural player brazen enough to believe he could be an asset to a Division I team, but Tinkle was in no position to turn anyone away without a closer look given the daunting rebuilding job he had inherited. In the ensuing months, Tinkle scoured Oregon State's campus for potential walk-ons capable of bolstering a threadbare roster featuring only eight scholarship players and nobody who averaged more than four points per game the previous season.
He hung dozens of fliers offering a tryout to anyone with varsity experience. He stopped by the recreation center a few times a week to scout pick-up games. He even perused the rosters of Oregon State's football and baseball teams in search of ex-basketball players interested in picking up the sport again.
"We needed guys to help us get better every day in practice and we hoped to find some who maybe could see the floor," Tinkle said. "Twenty-two kids showed up to the tryout, some of all shapes and sizes. There were a few kids I thought I could compete with at my age, which was scary. But we did identify seven kids we thought could help us."
If filling holes with walk-ons isn't usually a harbinger of instant success, then Oregon State has been a rare exception so far this season. A Beavers team projected last in the Pac-12 stunned seventh-ranked Arizona on Sunday to improve to 11-4, the best record of any of the 47 Division I programs led by a first-year coach.
Oregon State's surprising start has added to the momentum Tinkle and his staff had already generated on the recruiting trail this fall. The Beavers signed the sons of Tinkle and assistant coach Stephen Thompson and two other Rivals 150 players, a potential trajectory-altering class for a program that has only produced two winning seasons in the past 25 years and hasn't made the NCAA tournament since 1990.
Even though many viewed this season as a hopeless transition year sandwiched between the end of Craig Robinson's tenure and the arrival of that heralded recruiting class, Tinkle has refused to accept that. He has built a foundation for future success by emphasizing structured offense, relentless defense and good fundamentals, helping Oregon State shed its reputation for underachieving and emerge as one of college basketball's feel-good stories.
"Guys have bought in to what he is preaching, especially on defense," guard Langston Morris-Walker said. "We had so much talent in the past, so we took a lot of things for granted and relied on our talent rather than fundamentals. Now we look around and realize we don't have too many guys, so we know we have to play our tails off every game, every second, every practice."
It will come as no surprise to those close to Tinkle if he builds Oregon State into a winner because they've seen him do it before at a school even further off the national radar.
Tinkle was part of three NCAA tournament teams as a Montana assistant under Don Holst and Larry Krystkowiak before leading the Griz to three more NCAA tournaments in 2010, 2012 and 2013. Fueling those runs were underrated prospects Tinkle identified, recruited to Missoula and developed into quality players.
Two years before standout guard Anthony Johnson arrived at Montana, he had quit basketball and was washing dishes at a seafood restaurant in Tacoma, Wash., to save up to buy a car. All-Big Sky guard Will Cherry had zero scholarship offers when the California native visited Montana early in his senior year of high school. Big Sky player of the year Kareem Jamar also was under-recruited as the third and fourth option on loaded high school and AAU teams.
Tinkle's successful track record and regional familiarity is what drew the interest of Oregon State athletic director Bob De Carolis last May once Ben Howland had withdrawn his name from consideration. The job was appealing to Tinkle too even though Oregon State had cycled through six coaches since its last NCAA tournament bid.
Tinkle was 48 years old. There were no guarantees another major-conference program would ever seriously pursue him. And with the youngest of his three children entering his senior year of high school in the fall, the timing seemed right to take a risk.
"When we won that first championship at Montana, I was so happy to be part of it at my alma mater," Tinkle said. "I thought I was going to be there forever. Then as we won those back-to-back championships, it entered my thought process, 'How much more can we do here?' I still hoped to get to the point where we could win NCAA tournament games, but I also was ready for a new challenge."
To describe the Oregon State program as a mess when Tinkle arrived is a massive understatement.
Between Roberto Nelson, Devon Collier and Angus Brandt graduating, forward Eric Moreland leaving early to turn pro and promising guard Hallice Cooke transferring, Oregon State had already lost its five leading scorers from the previous season's 16-win team. Worse yet, Maryland transfer Nick Faust reneged on his initial decision to come to Corvallis without ever meeting Tinkle and a handful of Robinson's final recruits either weren't sure they still wanted to come or weren't on pace to qualify academically.
Tinkle's first priority was sitting down with junior college all-American Gary Payton II. and persuading the son of the Oregon State legend not to reopen his recruitment. The new coach also took the time to meet individually with each of his remaining returning players, many of whom had openly debated leaving Oregon State after Robinson's firing before deciding to face the challenge of rebuilding under a coach that didn't recruit them.
"I didn't know one thing about Coach Tinkle when he got hired, but it just felt right from the first moment on, forward Olaf Schaftenaar said. "He was just a really straight-up, honest guy who really cares about his players. When you work hard for him, you get rewarded."
Of course many Oregon State players experienced some culture shock transitioning from Robinson's laissez-faire leadership style to Tinkle's discipline-oriented, defensive-minded approach. The new coach grew so frustrated with how careless his players were with the basketball that he'd have them do grade school drills working on chest passes and jump stops and he'd stop practice to chastise them anytime someone violated his instructions.
Said Schaftenaar, "At first it was kind of weird working on how to pivot to a pass. That's something you do when you're like 12."
Said Morris-Walker, "It was definitely weird going all the way back to the basics, but he really wanted to knock out our bad habits. If guys weren't jump-stopping or making two-handed passes, it would be exposed. He would put it on blast during practice."
Over the past few months, Oregon State players have learned to trust Tinkle's methods
They understood why Tinkle demands sharp focus and nonstop effort after an exhibition loss to Division II Western Oregon revealed what can happen to an undermanned team if its attention drifts. They learned the importance of all those simple drills emphasizing fundamentals when they committed 51 turnovers during a three-game stretch in mid-November. And they've discovered a defense-first approach really can work as they've mixed two-three zone and man-to-man to limit opponents to 36.8 percent shooting.
It seems unlikely that this Oregon State team will be the one to break the program's quarter-century NCAA tournament drought since the Beavers lack the explosive scorers to survive an off night on defense or the depth to survive a key injury or two. Nonetheless, this season would be an overwhelming success if Oregon State merely continues to develop the right habits that could serve as the foundation for future 20-win seasons once an influx of talent arrives.
"The thing that is going to challenge us is to not think we've arrived after the Arizona win," Tinkle said. "We have made it very clear to the team what small margin for error we have. We can very quickly lose momentum and become the team that lost to Western Oregon in the exhibition game. We don't have nearly the level of depth or talent to have off nights and still win."
If the Beavers rotation players ever need inspiration to keep working hard, all they have to do is glance around the locker room to find one of the walk-ons who impressed Tinkle enough this fall to make the roster.
Bryan Boswell is a 6-foot-8 forward who thought his competitive basketball career was done after two underwhelming seasons in junior college. Matt Dahlen is a former second-team all-state guard who had opted to walk on to Oregon State's baseball team before Tinkle approached him. Tanner Sanders is a wide receiver on the football team thrilled to be playing two sports again, Dylan Livesay is a fundamentally sound guard and industrial engineering major and AJ Hedgecock is former walk-on football player whose career on the gridiron ended because of a shoulder injury.
Each of them never thought they would have the chance to play for Oregon State. Each of them have played a small part in the Beavers' unlikely success this season by setting an example in practices with their hard work and dedication.
"We had a team meeting a few weeks ago and when they talked about what it meant to them to be on this team, a couple of them broke out in tears," Tinkle said.
For Oregon State's long-struggling basketball program, it was one of many great moments in a feel-good season.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
