Oregon State Basketball: 2019-20 season preview for Beavers

Tinkle has been the most successful OSU skipper in decades

Wayne Tinkle’s record as the Beavers’ head coach currently stands at 75-83 overall coming into this year, for a meager winning percentage of 0.475. But before you go judging that number too harshly, keep in mind that those figures are weighed down heavily by OSU’s disaster season back in 2016-17. The Beavs finished 5-27 that year, winning just one conference game. Otherwise, Tinkle has guided the team to at least a .500 mark in his other four seasons in Corvallis. He also set the program’s recent high-water mark – an NCAA Tournament bid in 2016 that broke a 26-year Big Dance drought.

But while the Beavers of last season may not have reached the same heights as that 2016 team, there’s certainly much that they should feel proud about. The club’s 10-8 mark in the Pac-12 was the first time since (the original) Gary Payton’s senior year in 1990 that the Beavers finished with a winning record in conference play. Those ten wins earned Oregon State a share of fourth place in the league, which was also the school’s highest finish since – you guessed it – 1990.

Conference play has long been the Achilles heel for Oregon State. Consider that Wayne Tinkle’s pedestrian 0.389 winning percentage in league games is the highest of any Beavers coach since Jim Anderson retired in 1995, whose mark was not much better at just .435. Perhaps it is that futility that has led Oregon State to cycle through five head coaches in the past 25 years.

No coach has lasted longer than six years in Corvallis since Ralph Miller’s 19-year tenure during the 1970s and ‘80s. That list of ex-skippers includes Liberty head coach Ritchie McKay and former USC Upstate head coach Eddie Payne, as well as current Cal assistant Jay John and Craig Robinson, the brother of former First Lady Michelle Obama.

Tinkle is a safe bet to break the trend, though.

The former University of Montana player and coach enters that fateful Year Six in 2019-20, but Tinkle is under contract for two more seasons after this one. It will be interesting to see if he makes it to the hallowed ground of a seventh year with the school. Given that the Beavers have been consistently competitive during his reign, it seems more likely that Tinkle would take another job than for athletic director Scott Barnes to part with the coach. With Tinkle’s son, Tres, leaving the program after this year, expect some added speculation about the coach’s future in the next offseason.

Regardless of any of those questions, the younger Tinkle is back this year, headlining a roster full of talented players that blends youth and experience together. But it’s the upperclassmen who deserve first recognition.