On March 1, before allowing Wayne Tinkle to enter the esteemed college basketball coach’s club, he was in charge of an Oregon State program that reached an NCAA tournament in its first five seasons, not going to make it . Even though March was a madness, and now after winning the two-game Pacific-12 conference, they have won a record of 13-11.
And if you answer the question of whether Tinkle can coach anyone in the game – coaches, analysts, especially anyone who opposed his teams – then you will almost certainly understand in a lecture that he What a genius it really was.
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While many publicly view college basketball coaches with the ability to make this tournament or achieve something extraordinary once there, followers like Tinkle continue to improve their teams – until, perhaps, an athletic director’s office In or the president’s suit call it is time for someone else to try to take it to the “next level”.
Oregon State was not done for the Elite Eight because the great Ralph Miller met them there in 1982, and now perhaps he would call Tinkle’s name around the Oregon State campus with the same reverence. A 65-58 consecutive win over No. 8 seed Loyola Chicago in the NCAA Midwest Region semi-finals on Saturday was the Beavers’ sixth in a row, one of the losers and pressure to lose.
They are one win away from becoming the first 12 seeds since the tournament was expanded in 1985 – the lowest seed to reach the final four -.
“Overall our team has played really quiet in this run and in the last month of the league as well,” Tinkle told reporters on a postgame zoom call. “We talked to them about keeping an independent mind, working hard, playing together. There is a lot of trust in that locker room.
“Our people never stood up. We had some hurdles along the way. People bought into the bus. My family made me a T-shirt, and they made one for our whole group, and they talked about one way or the other. Ki: “‘Pac-12th 12th”. And then ‘March Madness 16th’ on the other side. And they put my father’s habits in my right arm. As Loyola is and well trained, I knew it was a must have. I knew we were going to move forward. “
If coaches work in NCAA tournaments they often learn that being talented is more important than anything, and being together is more important than anything, and in some circumstances it can help to be different. But when it all fails. Must be flexible.
Syracuse coach Jim Boehm, who entered his 20th Sweet 16 on Saturday, had teams that fit multiple times in each of those categories, and some that fit them all. He has coached teams loaded with professionals (Derrick Coleman, Ronnie Seikle, Sherman Douglas), some so tight that they were telepathic (Red Autry-Mike Hopkins backcourt) and many that were strategically unusual (Orange. Every group that ever matched Boehm’s area).
His desire to be resilient, however, showed in 2016, when the Orange implicated Gonataga in the Sweet 16 and the Elite Eight in Virginia and applied a full-court press to each to turn those games into one more effective final. Stolen four appearances. The Orange had entered as a No. 10 seed and not all were on a pressure team, but at a certain point they became a desperate team. They could either go home playing as they usually do or take shots unexpectedly and perhaps create an opportunity to move on.
He trailed Gonzaga by nine points, with 6:28 remaining in the Midwest Region semifinals, but in the final 5:17 he scored four turnovers and won with one basket. Two days later, Virginia was ahead with 15 to 9:33 left, so the press was already out, and it stirred up both Cavaliers and took a serious turn, allowing Syracuse to flip the game quickly and win by six Granted.
“Beaver guard Ethan Thompson told reporters,” The zone is something we’ve kept in our pockets for a long time. “Our team has a lot of different defenses that we’ve been able to play. The last few games, our man’s defense has been really good, but I think going into the field – I don’t know that it gives us more lives. Gives or threw them off a small guard. But just to be able to go from man to zone with discipline, to man back in another zone, even quickly in a single possession, just to do it. We always have something up our sleeves by having discipline for them. “
Tinkle looked quite upset at Loyola in Illinois, recognizing that it would be a mistake to allow Loyola to run his “zoom” set, cutting Cameron Krutwig on top of the key with the potters running against him and abundance. Is generated. College basketball’s No. 6 defensive team.
When the circumstances of the game decide, Tinkle believes in changing the defense, trying to gain advantage for his team. But the team went through the Pac-12 tournament, which the Beavers had to win to reach the NCAAS, mostly accomplished with man defense. So the first two NCAA rounds were victories over Tennessee and Oklahoma State. When he judged against Loyola, and within the first seven minutes, he resolved to play zone early. The Beavers had started much worse than the D’s, but the decision seemed to improve their efficacy on both ends.
Within five minutes of the switch around the 13:50 mark, Loyola scored just two points, both on free throws, and Oregon State had established a lead it would never abandon. Game Zone Tinkle gave much of the game to former Utah State coach Stu Morrill, which Tinkle accepted on Saturday.
“I know they struggled with it for a while, and they are so fast that they figured it out,” Tinkle said. “Our guys buy into that. We changed the hedge by coming out of timeouts, because they’re very good at dialing in stuff. And if our guys don’t react and don’t execute, it’s all for naught.” “
Loyola shot 33.3 percent from the field and hit only 5 of 23 from 3-point range. There were still some occasions when the Ramblers were able to lure the back line of the field away from the rim and sieve a cutter along the baseline for a layoff, but converted only 41.9 percent of their 2-point attempts. .
There was a chance to come late in the game, when the Ramblers themselves went into desperate mode and applied a press, that OSU center bounced around a turnover by Roman Silva and as an open left-wing 3 for Loyla guard Brayden Noren Wounded with 49 seconds. Left. Had that shot been connected, it would have been only a two-point beaver lead, and Tinkle’s talent would not have seemed so impenetrable. Norris is a 41 percent deep shooter. He made seven of his first 11 attempts in this tournament. This one did not fall.
And Loyola, which had a win over top-seeded Illinois six days earlier, transformed the team into a favorite position in the Midwest region.
“Our people don’t want to stop playing,” Thompson said. “It’s a wonderful feeling to be a part of this success. The Beaver Nation has waited a long time. When Coach Tinkle and the coaching staff got here, it was the goal, keeping that in mind, to make it a successful basketball. To change. We are here. Now a. “
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