NCAA Basketball rewind: Most impactful coaching hires after 2014 season

4. Wayne Tinkle (Oregon State)

Although a successful program many decades ago, Oregon State hadn’t been a school known for their basketball team for some time. The Beavers hadn’t been in an NCAA Tournament since 1990, enduring a long stretch of mediocrity without success. By 2014, the program was again hunting for answers and engulfed in another head coaching search, but this time they picked a winner.

Wayne Tinkle played center at Montana back in the 80’s and spent a dozen years on a long professional playing career across the world. He returned to his alma mater an assistant in 2001 and became head coach five years later. Tinkle’s only experience had been at Montana, but had done solid work in eight years as head coach, leading the Grizzlies to three NCAA Tournaments.

First off, Tinkle broke the long drought, leading Oregon State back to the NCAA Tournament in 2016, just his second year. He didn’t turn the Beavers into a perennial Pac-12 contender, but the best was yet to come. Each of his three most recent teams has been solid, with a 4th place finish in 2019. This past season’s team returned to the Big Dance and marched all the way to the Elite Eight on a wildly unexpected run. Tinkle has been big for this program.