Basketball Notebook: Rueck & Tinkle Excited About Restart

Oregon State men's basketball coach Wayne Tinkle, women's basketball coach Scott Rueck, and sports medicine director Dr. Doug Aukerman Sports Medicine took to zoom to talk about the upcoming season, safety protocols, player readiness, and much more...

MORE: Beavers in the NFL: Week 3 Recap | Mailbag: Pac-12 Restart; fans; hoops

WBB: Rueck excited about new roster, leadership

After losing a good chunk of experience via graduation and departures over the offseason, the Oregon State women's basketball team will be looking to reload and continue their strong run of play in the 2020-21 season.

Head coach Scott Rueck, who's entering his 11th season in charge of the program, feels really good about where his team stands as far as physical and mental readiness despite having limited workouts and interactions over the extended offseason.

"I'm really impressed with where we're at. Our athletes have been going really hard with the voluntary workouts," Rueck said. "The only thing that's really been missing has been the physical contact on the court. We've gone eight weeks with limited access and have seen the team really stay sharp with shooting and ball-handling exercises. I like our conditioning level and I really feel good about where we're at."

Despite losing Mikayla Pivec, Kat Tudor, Maddie Washington, and Destiny Slocum, who were huge leadership pieces and keepers of the culture, Rueck has been beyond impressed with several new voices rising up and leading by example.

"We certainly lost a lot, but our five new additions have really impressed during these eight weeks. I love the leadership from Aleah Goodman and Taya Corosdale. Those two have done an incredible job of leading our offseason program, inviting others in, and teaching them our culture. Not once have I coached effort over these past eight weeks. This team loves basketball, has a high maturity level, and has a healthy-chip on their shoulder."

The Beavers will be allowed to start practices around October 14th depending on how the schedule shakes out and Rueck couldn't be more excited to be able to get on the court and see what he's got with this years' group.

"I can't wait to get something on the schedule and play some games. “We'll have our Pac-12 schedule soon and then we'll feel out how much room we have for non-conference contests. Everything is still sort of up in the air, but we're hoping to finalize the non-Pac-12 portion."

MBB: Beavers to feature more athleticism

On the men's side, Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle will be looking to find success with a new-look roster that features athleticism and bounce at just about every position.

With Tres Tinkle, Kylor Kelley, Payton Dastrup, Antoine Vernon, and Sean Miller-Moore all departing the program in the offseason for graduation and transfer reasons, the Beavers will be looking to replace a fair amount of production, most notably in the case of Tinkle and Kelley.

"I'm really excited to be back. We really feel that we added some really neat pieces, but we've yet to see it all come together," Tinkle said. "We built some good momentum over the last couple of years and we'd like to take a step forward this year. We're more athletic and I'm very eager to see it all mesh together. This is a really tough group."

While it's never easy to have an exodus of players in a single offseason, let alone the programs' all-time leading scorer in Tinkle, Wayne feels that the groundwork that was laid in voluntary workouts of the summer will be a real advantage for the program in this atypical year.

"We're really excited to get to work and get going and we'll be physically and mentally ready to go whenever we get started," Tinkle said. "We had a really strong summer with most of our guys here, but until you can go 5-on-5 and shake the rust off, we're going to need every single one of these practices to be ready. Hopefully, it'll be enough time to gel, build some chemistry, and build off a very solid summer."

Beavers looking to maximize health, and minimize injuries

As is the case with football, there's a good amount of concern surrounding soft-tissue injuries for basketball players as they return to full-contact practices after having an extended period of downtime.

In the wake of the massive number of injuries that the NFL encountered in week two, there was a level of concern for how it could correlate to contact sports in general, but Rueck is confident that it won't be an issue.

"That's always a concern when you've been off," Rueck said. "We've been doing basketball actions (non-contact) for about eight weeks now. We want to ease them into the contact portion of practice to limit injuries, but it's not a concern of mine at this time. We've had enough time to build-up that we're in a good place. This year doesn't seem that different in that regard."

Tinkle echoed Rueck's notion, noting that the NFL and college basketball aren't in the same boat, but adding that they still need to be cautious.

"I learned early on that you can't worry about injuries that are inevitable," Tinkle said. "Physically I think our guys in a great spot. It's a little different with the NFL strength and size and they probably had more time off than our guys had, so I'm not very concerned."

Director of Sports Medicine Dr. Doug Aukerman furthered the point, adding that while OSU is concerned about the possibility, they believe in their past program of preventative measures that have helped keep injuries to a minimum.

"With the soft tissue injuries, you've got to look at acute vs chronic," Aukerman said. "We monitor load, repetitions, and volume, and the strength staff really keeps a close eye on all that. We have really emphasized preventative measures over the past several years, and it's our belief that it will pay dividends."

Tres Tinkle itching for NBA Draft

With the 2020 NBA Draft set to take place on November 18th, Oregon State fans will certainly be tuned to see where former Oregon State wing Tres Tinkle lands.

"I'm really proud of the way he's handled himself since the postponement," Tinkle said. "He's been working out and staying ready, trying to manage his load to be in the best position coming up."

The 6-foot-7, 227-pounder s projected to be either be a second-round or undrafted selection in the upcoming draft, but Tinkle is optimistic about where his son will land as Tres has received great feedback from several notable NBA franchises.

"He does have a lot of teams, more so in the eastern conference, that are interested," Tinkle said. "Toronto, Charlotte, and Dallas have been the teams that are keeping an eye on him. After the free agency process is completed, we'll have a better idea of who's seriously interested and who's got the draft picks to make it happen. It's going to come down to the wire and he probably won't know until just before."