Tinkle gets the dreaded vote of confidence

Great connections in WT's words:

"I've got to do some searching here because I'm having a hard time getting these guys to focus for 40 minutes. That's on me," he said. "I've got to do a better job because we're still continuing to shoot ourselves in the foot here and we're a hell of a ways into the season."



"I've not been around a team that talks less than this team," Tinkle said. "This team doesn't talk. They won't talk to each other. That's part of a young team becoming a little more mature."



"It seems like we have to coach every pass on both ends. And that's really tough," Tinkle said. "We'll do it if that's what it takes. But when you get to where you want to be, you can hand that responsibility over to the team and they're the ones that are being vocal as far as calling plays. ... We'll watch and nobody will call to get us into something so we've got to yell something from the bench."

On one hand you could say it was a "vote of contract" - we can't exactly afford to drop him right now. But then again, I don't want to see him go. I think that by the time they realized that Tres was gone for the season, and we were down to about 3 people that were Pac-12 ready due to other injuries, it was too late for the "shock" treatment described above. We are improving; we just can't stay with a team built around a full bench of Pac-12 level players for 40 minutes most of the time.

I am not sure about Eubanks being so much a finesse player than a player that has 3 people guarding him all the time because they know he is the only threat - lately he has broken out because opponents have had to start covering G, and our guards.

Tinkle's job status is not in question this year. However he has lost most of the equity he built up from last year. If he does not either make the Dance in the next 2 years or at the least come close his seat will be hot. Depending on how recruiting goes after Eubanks, Thompson and Tinkle depart we may be in for another rebuild.

Tinkle has to stay healthy enough for long enough to show it. When he DOES play, it is pretty clear he is good. Sneaky good. One of those guys that is always just accumulates the stats and at the end of the game you were like... wow. 20 points and 10 rebounds. really? how? He is not explosive in a way that draws attention, he is an all game grinder that has really good short and mid range game. 

Eubanks isn't complete as a player but I think he can get there, and he can't be the only guy on the court. 

Thompson? I think he is coming in under expectations. We shall see how he develops. 

In the end, it is amazing how big of a 180 a team can take when you get the right one or two pieces out there on the court and the dynamic changes. 

Here's how I look at it. There are 4 freshmen in this conference this year that are having great seasons, none of them are from OSU. The two top scoring returning sophs in the conference are..... Stephen Thompson Jr and Drew Eubanks. Thompson is currently conference-wide top 8 in scoring and top 6 in steals. Eubanks is currently top 15 in scoring, top 8 in rebounds and #2 in blocked shots. With the exception of a few freshmen that are statistically above them in some categories, most of the rest of the players above them are seniors or very good juniors that for the most part will be gone next year. Tres Tinkle was leading the team in scoring and rebounding and steals when he broke his wrist, he will be a soph next year, again.

This next season we should have a very solid top 3 players in improved Eubanks/Thompson/Tinkle, McLaughlin and Big G should be improved, hopefully we'll have Malcolm, and who knows exactly where younger Thompson will fit in... If we can get some good first year production out of him terrific. In an ideal world S. Thompson is no longer playing point guard. To me, Manuel and Kone look the part of good young players that will contribute more next year than this.

If Malcolm comes back we'll have at least 9 players (assuming younger Thompson is as good as advertised) that I see playing at this level. This year after Tinkle went out I'd say it was 2 OK players, a few question marks who are now moving into their roles, and 3 or 4 that are seeing playing time simply because the team is undermanned.

I'm hoping the recruiting class is not yet done and that it doesn't get filled out with 0 star JC players. If Riechle (who is a 3 star, not bad) and any other young recruits pan out we could have an actual full roster of kids that can at least fill a role in this league. That doesn't necessarily put you at the top of the conference, but it's a far cry better than it was looking earlier this season.

My point wasn't that our two stats leaders are going to be the best in the conference, it's more that they are playing reasonably well now, in this league, and should continue to improve. I think next year we will get reasonably solid play from at least three players, probably more, we need 5-6 to be competitive enough to get out of the hole, more like 8-9 to be very competitive. If Tres turns out to be better than several here think he will (he was starting to play at a higher level his last five games before reinjuring his foot his freshman year- I want to see him have on offseason he can actually play/work out rather than sit on the couch) or a new kid turns out to be a superstar ( I'm not holding my breath for that one) it will sort of drag everyone's level of play up.

I'm still not sure if this coaching staff has put together any kind of an offense that can get or keep the team in the top part of the league consistently. Right now they are not playing defense to the level they were, that needs to change to compete. If both change we could have some fun in a year or two.