Wayne Tinkle Talks Oregon State WCC Tournament Run On 750 The Game
750 The Game Staff
Oregon State men’s basketball is in Las Vegas, but for the first time as participants in the West Coast Conference Tournament. The No. 5 seed Beavers will face No. 9-seed Pepperdine in the tournament second round on Saturday night. Pepperdine topped 8-seed Portland on Friday.
Earlier Friday, Beavs head coach Wayne Tinkle joined 750 The Game with guest-hosts Judah Newby & Steven Vaughan filling in for John Canzano.
No stranger to playing postseason basketball in Las Vegas, Tinkle acknowledged a slightly differerent feel to the WCC tourney compared to the former Pac-12.
“It’s a little different with the WCC Tournament being so early,” Tinkle said. “We’ve got our tournament and the women’s tournament running simultaneously, so there’s still a buzz in the air, and our guys are excited to be here and have a great opportunity tomorrow.”
As for roster health, Tinkle noted the week between games helped a few key players including WCC First-Team selection Michael Rataj, and others.
“Those guys needed a couple of days at the beginning of the week. We sort of altered our practices a little bit to not pound our guys with too many reps. But we also had to sharpen our intensity, we couldn’t let that wane at all.”
The Beavs dropped the final two regular season games in hard-fought battles to San Francisco and Santa Clara, but Tinkle said he likes where the team’s mindset is ahead of tournament play.
“We’re excited. If our guys aren’t chopping at the bit to come out with their hair on fire, then we don’t have the guys that we thought we do. But I know the mood has been really good this week.
“We’re certainly in a good spot. We feel like we’ve been playing some pretty good basketball. You get to this time of year, we’ve got to button down the one area we’ve kind of slacked a little bit is on the defensive end, we get to where we’re defending, and then keeping that efficiency on the offensive end, feel like we can put some things together here and hopefully get on a roll.”
The Beavers won 20 games in the regular season for the first time since the 1989-90 squad led by Gary Payton. They also won fifteen games at Gill Coliseum, including a stretch of ten in a row. All in all, Tinkle said his team grew throughout their first season in the WCC.
“I think we’ve adjusted well. Again, we left a couple games out there and you know, maybe we finish a little higher than we did. All that being said, for having added nine new guys in what’s kind of year-one of another rebuild, I’m really happy with what our guys have been able to accomplish. But we’ve got to thirst for more.”
Inevitably, maintaining a strong roster year-to-year in the modern era of NIL and the transfer portal has its challenges. But Tinkle says he is confident in the collective efforts of the University, athletic department, the Dam Collective, and alumni to help keep Oregon State winning at a high level going into their final WCC season in 2025-26 before ushering in the new Pac-12.
“I remember meeting with Scott Barnes last spring and I said, hey we’re going to win 19 or 20 games next year, have a chance for the postseason, but we’re going to take a really big leap,” Tinkle told 750 The Game. “And then that next year, our last year in the WCC, we want to kick some tail, so we’re in a position of strength when we get to this rebuild of the Pac-12. And so far I think we’re on pace, a little ahead of pace, we need to make some noise down here, keep this thing rolling. But I think we’ve really started a lot of positive momentum in the right direction for getting back on track and putting it in position where we don’t have the drop-offs that we’ve had in years past.”
Oregon State and Pepperdine tip off at 6 p.m. on Saturday night on ESPN+. The winner advances to the quarterfinals to face No. 4-seed Santa Clara on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on ESPN 2.