Pac-12 Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2020-21 season

By Brian Rauf | May 16, 2020

EUGENE, OREGON - JANUARY 11: Payton Pritchard #3 of the Oregon Ducks pokes the ball away from Alonzo Verge Jr. #11 of the Arizona State Sun Devils as Will Richardson #0 defends during the second half at Matthew Knight Arena on January 11, 2020 in Eugene, Oregon. (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images) /

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SEATTLE, WASHINGTON – MARCH 06: head coach Wayne Tinkle of the Oregon State Beavers (Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images) /

team. 516. . Last Year: 18-13 (7-11). . Beavers . 12

As most teams in the Pac-12 expect to take a step forward, someone has to take a step back – and Oregon State is the clear favorite in that undesirable category.

The Beavers finished in the bottom half of the conference last year and are losing all-conference player Tres Tinkle (after the decade he spent playing for the Beavers) and elite shot-blocker Kylor Kelley. Ethan Thompson is expected to return after putting his name in the NBA Draft pool but, even if he returns, he will be Oregon State’s only returning player that averaged at least eight points per game.

As such, it’s safe to say the Beavers will regress on that end of the court. That’s never good, but that’s especially troubling for a team that needed their offense to overcome their terrible defense in order to get to a mediocre record. And not only will their offense get worse, but their already-bad defense (165th in efficiency) will too without Kelley’s shot-blocking and Tinkle, who led them in steals.

It’s a bad time to be on the hot seat for head coach Wayne Tinkle. The Beavers have only made the NCAA Tournament once in his tenure (2016) and, with their losses and lack of reinforcements, I’ll be surprised if they don’t finish in the conference basement for the second time since that tournament berth.

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