A Glimpse of Hope for the Future
Oregon State center KC Ibekwe (24) is helped up from the floor during a celebration of the team’s 60-52 win over Colorado in an NCAA college basketball game in Corvallis, Ore., Saturday, Jan. 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Amanda Loman)
Patience is not a word with much value in the college sports landscape these days. Message boards and Twitter consistently light up with irate calls for the firing of coaches after every single loss. A quality win on Thursday can be completely forgotten about by Saturday if the team has a poor shooting night.
In the case of the OSU men’s basketball team, patience was at an extreme premium following last season’s three-win debacle. Stories of a selfish and divided locker room floated around. Ten players from last year’s team had eligibility remaining and are now playing elsewhere. Famously, Wayne remarked “not 12th” when asked what he thought about the media’s predicted conference finish prior to the Elite 8 season…..there would be no prediction when the team was again selected 12th this year.
This group of Baby Beavers has shown flashes of brilliance if not the consistency all teams strive for. They went toe to toe with Duke in Portland on Thanksgiving. That game was sandwiched between two sound defeats to Portland State. They kicked off the conference season with a win against the Huskies, and followed that up with seven consecutive conference losses. Prior to Saturday’s win over Colorado, the previous three contests had all been decided by 20 points - losses to Stanford and Utah bookended a road victory over Cal.
And yet, there they were on Saturday, trading blows with a Colorado team that had soundly defeated them in Boulder (by, you guessed it, 20 points) earlier this month. On the offensive end, freshman Jordan Pope poured in five threes and scored 17 of his 19 points in the second half en route to his third conference Freshman of the Week selection. Another freshman, KC Ibekwe, blocked five shots to anchor the defense.
Ibekwe in particular provides a window to the future of the program. Ibekwe didn’t sign with the team until a week before fall term started this year, and has slowly been acclimating to Pac-12 play. Maybe not coincidentally, our two most recent wins were also the games in which Ibekwe has played the most minutes this season.
In addition to Pope and Ibekwe, fellow freshmen Nick Krass, Michael Rataj and Tyler Bilodeau have all seen their minutes and impact on the game increase as the season progresses. I get excited just thinking about the possibilities of them playing together for another three seasons.
And here is where there is reason to be patient. As much as we’d like to believe we are on par with Oregon, Arizona, UCLA….we’re not. Their level of recruiting is far beyond what we are currently able to do. They’re recruiting players with NBA ready talent and bodies right out of high school. Those types of players don’t choose Oregon State right now (though I’m sure the Dam Nation Collective is working on changing that). Current NBA players Drew Eubanks and Gary Payton II and all Pac-12 performers like Tres Tinkle and the Thompson brothers spent several seasons in Corvallis. The pathway is there for guys to go from OSU to the professional ranks, if they’re patient. While the most talented teams typically dominate the postseason, there are plenty of examples of senior-laden teams with less talent getting into the NCAA tournament and making deep runs. I believe that’s where OSU can find sustained success - if they can recruit skilled prep players, develop them, and find a way to keep them on campus for four years, replacing players as they exhaust their eligibility with more solid prep players (Think Gonzaga before they became a perennial Top-5 team).
I know there are arguments out there for moving on from Wayne Tinkle. We are near the bottom of the Pac-12 for the second year in a row. He has been the coach of record for two of the worst seasons in school history. Twice the team has made the NCAA tournament and has been unable to translate those seasons into sustained success. Struggles with transfers, both the number of players leaving and the general lack of impact of those transferring in, have led to the lack of consistency since he has taken over the program.
I have always chosen to focus on the positives - the fact he’s coached OSU to their only two NCAA appearances in the last 30 years. That he’s never had two consecutive seasons of declining wins in conference. After the five-win 2016-17 season, Tinkle responded with seasons of 16, 18, 18, and 20 wins. The team has already tripled last season’s win total. He and his family have made Corvallis their home, not just a place to collect a paycheck. He’s shown a willingness to admit mistakes or change tactics - analyzing what didn’t work last year, and making changes to the coaching staff and recruiting tactics heading into this season. Welcome aboard, Eric Reveno and Tim Shelton. After bringing in transfers like Tre Williams, Dashawn Davis, Ahmad Rand, Xzavier Malone-Key last season (all players who spent one season in Corvallis before moving on), Tinkle loaded up on traditional prep recruits this offseason. Next year’s recruiting class already includes 6’11 Gavin Marrs, an athletic big man who can run the floor and shoot it a little bit as well.
So, hang in there Beaver Nation. The results may not be spectacular now, but the team plays hard on both ends of the floor and looks like they enjoy playing basketball together. Wins are coming for this group. Think of OSU right now as Laney Boggs, the main character in the 1999 film “She’s All That” before her transformation. I think if we all show a little patience, we’ll be hearing The Cranberries play in the background as the Beavs head back to the Big Dance in a few years.
