NCAA MEN'S BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP: REGIONAL SEMIFINAL: OREGON ST. VS LOYOLA CHICAGO

March 27, 2021

Wayne Tinkle

Bankers Life Fieldhouse

Oregon State Beavers

Sweet 16 Postgame Media Conference

Oregon State - 65, Loyola Chicago - 58

COACH TINKLE: All I want to say is can we cut in? That's it. Go ahead, fire away.

Q. Wayne, Ethan just seemed like he was calm out there and just in control of everything. Where does that come from? Where did it come from today and where has it been coming from of late?

COACH TINKLE: I think he's a senior. He started every game for us. He took a lot of the brunt early on in the year for his team's play. And he's stepping up big time. And it's our team overall has really played calm, through this run and even the last month or so of league.

We talked about keeping a free mind, playing hard, playing together. There's so much trust in that locker room that it allows guys to, you know, to be -- like I said, their minds are clear. They're playing hard. They have each other's back. If some guy's not having the night he typically does, somebody else comes in, steps in.

Ethan, I mean, it's amazing all that he's been through and the level that he's playing right now. And it's because of the character he has, obviously the talent. And it's fun to watch. And he's been really fun to coach. And I don't know that he even came out tonight. I don't think he did. Couldn't be more proud. He's stepping up big time for us.

Q. Tonight your team was able to answer every big run and basket that Loyola had there in the second half. And that's been happening for a couple of weeks now. What is it about this team's resiliency that's allowed that to happen?

COACH TINKLE: We're playing with a lot of confidence on both ends. And we're a pretty darned good defensive team. And we showed that. And then timely baskets.

I think early on we were a little caught in the moment. We weren't as sharp offensively, plus they're really good defensively. We heard about that and saw it in all the tape we watched. But we settled in.

And there's no doubt in our guys' minds. They really believe that this is their time. It's what we said before we left the locker room, that we're not going to get rattled. This is our time. It's meant to be. Let's go play ball. And like I said, they were all very, very calm through it all.

Q. You've been coaching a long time. This is one of the most historic runs in the history of the school. What's it like for you personally to be right in the middle of this and being a leader on the team?

COACH TINKLE: Super proud. Just, you know, you look at all we've had to deal with in our time at Oregon State and especially this year. And our guys never wavered. And we've had some hiccups obviously along the way. We talked about a turning point after the Arizona game at home, at Cal, having to really challenge some guys that maybe were going to revert.

And the guys just bought in. And I'm proud of them. Personally I'll be able to think on it down the road. My family made me a T-shirt and they made them for our whole group, that talked, about I think on one side it said "Pac-12 12th" and then "March Madness 16th." And they put my dad's initial on my right sleeve. And I wore that. Normally I don't do that.

But I had so much confidence and belief in this group, I knew that this thing -- as good as Loyola is, man, as well-coached -- I knew this thing was meant to be. I knew we were going to move on. I don't normally show that much emotion after a game, but I wanted them to know because they had no clue that I had that T-shirt on underneath.

So, there's a personal piece to it, but it's really about our guys and what they have been doing day in, day out that has us in this position.

Q. What does a win like this mean for the university -- for the program as a whole to have the basketball world talking about the Oregon State Beavers in the way they haven't in a very long time?

COACH TINKLE: It's great. It's an incredible feeling. Again, just all that we've been through, all that we've dealt with, I'll be honest. You hear some murmurs in the background when we're going through some things, but we knew as a staff and we knew the people in our foxhole. We're never going to waver. And we never cut any corners to try to win at all costs.

We just kept our nose to the grind stone. We kept challenging each other to do a better job on the road, recruiting, in practice. Challenged the guys we had to expect more, because -- and to be accountable because it would lead to something like this. And we've laid a lot of the foundation over the course of the six and a half years.

And it's a credit to all those guys that were here before us to get to us this position. But I'll tell you, it's a great deal, but we're not surprised. When you get a group that's got talent, but has heart talent and brains, that buys in, you can do incredible things. It's been a crazy right but we certainly obviously want to keep this thing going.

Somebody asked me if I was going to be satisfied. Kind of challenged me. You probably are satisfied with Sweet 16, a couple wins, you know, and I almost wanted to jump through the phone and knock him out. But he's a close friend of mine.

But these guys aren't satisfied. They're not going to be. We challenged them in the Pac-12 championship. Don't be satisfied.

I'm going to share this with you and I'm rambling. I was going for a walk through the convention center earlier this morning, like I've been doing. And I believe his name is Tim Allen. I don't know if he's a volunteer but he's been working every day. And he threw something at me that was pretty cool. He said, Coach, do you know what the enemy of great is? And I said no. He says it's not bad. It's good enough. He said good enough is the enemy of great.

And challenge your guys not to be good enough, to continue to be great. And we used that. We used it at shoot-around this morning. We used it before the game. We talked about dare to be great. It's our time, dare to be great. So really good stuff. And I wanted to give him a little shout-out on that.

Q. Does the zone that you ran for a lot today have a name, play call? And what do you usually want to get out of that zone and kind of what did it give you today?

COACH TINKLE: You're not from Syracuse or Houston, are you?

Q. I am not. I live in Chicago.

COACH TINKLE: No, I mean, listen, we've been running this thing for a long time. I gotta give credit to Stew Morrill, my years at Montana. I had a great assistant coach named Bill Evans. And he was a 1-1-3 matchup guy. We had a great shot blocker named Brian Qvale, and he wanted him to go corner to corner to trap. And I said I don't want our best shot blocker, even though he's athletic, leaving the rim. So we morphed together a couple of different zones. That's about as in depth as far as I'll go.

We've been good going man-to-man. It was so loud in there today we missed a couple of those calls and gave them some easy looks. But the big thing is to get to shooters, pressure the ball. Everybody else is loaded. A lot of the same principles as our man. And I know they struggled with it for a while. And they're so sharp, they figured out part way a couple of the passes, pass against our 1.

Then we went 1-3-1 late to slow them down and try to catch them off guard. He made a great in-out pass for 3. But our guys buy into that. We change defenses out of timeouts because they're so good at dialing stuff up. And our guys, if they don't respond and execute, then it's all for naught.

Q. You guys are 40 minutes from being the lowest seeded team ever to make the Final Four. Is that something you've talked about at all over the last few days?

COACH TINKLE: No, to be honest. The guys pay attention to all the media and, as much as we try to steer them away from it, the social media, in particular. They just want to keep riding the wave. We did use the 12th -- during the year, when we were picked 12th in the league.

Really haven't made a big deal about the 12th seed in the tournament. We were thrilled to be here. But we knew we had a mission. I don't want to throw too much at them. They'll see it. They'll see it. And it's cool. But we just gotta really keep our feet on the ground, stay humble and stay hungry, keep grinding away.

Q. How much of the run, you won four of six to close the regular season and obviously you've done what you've done in the postseason, how much has it been tied to the zone? Has the zone been a key part of it? I know it's something you've gone to to change tempo and pace here and there?

COACH TINKLE: No, I look back to our run in the Pac-12 tournament. We played far less zone than we anticipated. A lot of man-to-man. I think even against Tennessee, a lot of man, mix some zone in. And the same with Oklahoma State. But we knew we had to have a different game plan for these guys. They're so good at what they do. If you let them do it, they're going to make you look silly.

So we used everything we had in the arsenal. We had great contributions off the bench when we were struggling early. Gianni Hunt's defense was incredible, man and zone. Maurice Calloo comes in, Rodrigue Andela, Tariq Silver, a couple of big shots. And then our vets took it home from there.

Our guys, when they're locked in, we work on this stuff. People wonder why we stumbled early. We have a lot of stuff that we like to have in our arsenal. And it takes a while, especially when you consider we didn't have a summer, everything else was abbreviated in the fall. And the fact we've got a lot of new guys. It took time. And I'm just so thrilled for the people that never wavered in their support. And this one's for them.

Q. One more zone question for you. Looked like especially early on you were able to limit them being able to run everything through Krutwig. Was that part of the focus of that? And how well do you think he did in that particular area?

COACH TINKLE: No, certainly. He's so good. Again, we watched a lot of tape. And when 5 sagged off of him to help on any of the curl hand-offs and that action, that's when he can pick you apart, go one-on-one. And so we knew we had to pressure him in man-to-man and also in zone, to really try to fight the touch.

And they did a great job of drawing up some stuff to get him touches. You saw a couple of great drop-offs on the back cuts. But we knew we had bodies to throw at him. And we knew we had different defenses to keep him from getting in a real rhythm. He still had a double-double with four assists. He's a heck of a player.

Q. Sister Jean gets a lot of pub as she does. You'll probably get a phone call from Bud Ossey tonight.

COACH TINKLE: I'll look forward to that call from Bud Ossey. And I'll look forward to the call from my sisters. We've talked about that, and I have nothing but incredible respect for Sister Jean. Having grown up on Jesuit campuses I know how cool that stuff is and the importance of people like her have. That's really just a neat deal. But you know what? We've got Bud Ossey. We've got my sisters out there probably saying a bunch of Hail Marys the last few days, my own family. And proud of them for sure, too.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.