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PAC-12 MEN'S BASKETBALL MEDIA DAY

October 21, 2016

San Francisco, California

MODERATOR: Up next Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle and sophomore forward Tres Tinkle. Coach, an opening remark?

WAYNE TINKLE: Looking forward to this upcoming season. Lot of challenges ahead for our group. 12 of our 13 players are first- or second-year guys. Not too many of them had much experience from last season, but we love the group that we have, the way they're going about their business, how they carry themselves on and off the court. And we know with that, we can build moving forward.

Q. Tres and Coach, one year into it, what's it been like with the father-son combination playing for your dad, Tres, and coaching your son? And has it been different than expected? How has it been after a year?
TRES TINKLE: It's a very special opportunity, of course. But going through my first year, I didn't know what to expect. At least I thought I did, and then it was kind of a whirlwind. But it's been fun. We've had our learning curves, for sure. That's just getting used to the transition between when I can call him dad, when I can call him coach. It was tough for me just to know who I'm talking to. Once that got figured out, it made things way easier and we've just been growing from there. Obviously we have days where some are better than others. But if we look back and reflect on it, it's unique, and it's awesome to have him by my side the whole way.

WAYNE TINKLE: Well, all the days are good in my book. But he hit it right on the head there. I think he was used to Dad maybe helping coach, criticize, applaud in the past kind of one-on-one, and I think it was a real adjustment for him to get any correction along those lines in front of his peers was different. He was thinking Dad was coaching his team, and he had to make that adjustment that it's Coach Tinkle. So we got through it early in the season, and I think he went on to have a remarkable season for a freshman, but also giving those circumstances and expectation as a coach's son.

But I've got to continue to remind myself that this could only be a four-year deal with memories that last a lifetime. So I've got to put a positive spin on all of it, but also remember there are 12 or 13 other pairs of eyes watching how we conduct ourselves. By no means is this just a father-son experience. We've got our whole program, our university and everybody behind us. But the side bar of it is we're able to enjoy some pretty special moments together.

Q. Can you talk about what areas of your game you've worked on the most during the summer to get ready for your sophomore year, and just what areas are you working on to take your game to that next level?
TRES TINKLE: Yeah, I was out because of my injury, but I was still trying to do whatever I could. What I really think I worked on was just tightening up my shot, just being a little more consistent. Also my ball handling too, because I couldn't really move much, just chair dribbling and things like that. But the biggest part of my game that will probably be improved is the mental aspect of sitting out and having to observe. And learning the game through the coach's eyes and watching my teammates excel to what they're working on, and try to implement it into my game when I'm out there again. And, yeah just sitting out and kind of finding an appreciation much deeper than I had before for the game and just trying to play with more passion was probably what I worked on the most.

Q. College men's teams took 35% of their shots from three-point range last season. Why do you think there's that increase? Also, could there be anything -- could it be anything to do with big men being more skilled and able to do some different things out there?
WAYNE TINKLE: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I think there's a combination there. There's a lot of focus on three versus two, and coaches have all these different formulas on X amount of three-point shots, if you shoot 30%, equate to this. That's well above my head, obviously. But I think the bigger part of it is the emphasis of taking the physicality out of the game in and around the basket. You see it at all levels. You look at the NBA, and there is nobody throwing the ball into the post very often anyway. I think it's a little bit of the cycle that we're in. But also I think there's a lot of focus on trying to make the game more exciting, improve scoring, that sort of thing.

We feel pretty lucky because I think we shot a good percentage as a team in regards to the rest of the conference. We feel like that will be a strength of ours. I'm looking forward to having some true post players this season, some of the young guys we've developed, because we feel that inside out balance is really crucial. So it's something we'll continue to build off of. But then also try to take advantage of our guys that can shoot it beyond the arc as well.

Q. You talked a little bit about Tres and the adjustments you made. What about your other freshmen has maybe changed and benefited from all that experience last year, I'm thinking of Stephen Thompson and Drew.
WAYNE TINKLE: Yeah, we're excited to see that. Big Drew and Stevie have made big strides in the off-season. Drew's weighing in over 250. Has a great body, and he hasn't lost any of his athleticism, which we knew was going to be the case, but he wasn't so sure.

Stevie Thompson, we know he's a great scorer. He's always been a scorer. We've talked about the next phase of his game as being a playmaker so he becomes that much tougher to defend. If you're known as a one-trick guy, coaches are good enough to scheme. Now he's added that ability to make plays off the dribble for his teammates, which I think is going to allow him to be one of the more prolific scorers in our conference as we move ahead. In his maturity of the game, Tres talked about his mental development, and Stevie's done that as well. Drew, also. I mean, if the wind blew in through the window during practice, it would upset him. He's really learned how to channel that. And we expect big things out of those two in combination with Tres, and then some of the other guys that are newcomers. We know it's going to be a challenge, but again we love the group we have. We believe this them. It's just going to be a matter of getting them experience and seeing where that takes us.

Q. Earlier today we heard Stanford talk about creating a culture with the regime change there. It seems in a short period of time you've been able to do that successfully in Corvallis. Where are you exactly do you feel in that journey of changing the culture? From an outsider's standpoint, it would be easy to say you've already done it. What do you think?
WAYNE TINKLE: I think we've made great improvements in a short time, but now all those guys are gone, so we have to do it again. But we do have a good group of sophomores, I think, that were in those early stages, and they're going to be able to now carry the baton, and hopefully at some point hand the torch off to the next group. That's how you create consistency. You get a group of guys at the bottom level to learn things the right way, to go about their business the right way. These guys have bought into it. When they're seniors, they hand it off to the classes below. So we're hoping to continue to build off of that. These guys really stand for the right thing, play the right way. So we're excited. Now that we've been able to erase the vacancy from the NCAA Tournament, this feels like year one as far as moving our program forward, because we've got a good number of our guys there. It's young and unproven guys by and large. But our kind of guys.

The real key was, and I don't want to take anything away. The way that group we inherited really bought in. It was incredible. They had these new, crazy coaches coming in, singing from a different hymnal book than what they've heard, and they bought into it. It was neat the leadership they showed to this young group a year ago, and we saw what that led to. Now these guys are off and running, and hopefully going to carry that forward as well.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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