Oregon - 86, Oregon State - 72
MODERATOR: We're joined by Oregon State with Coach Tinkle. We've got Roman Silva here and Jarod Lucas as well. Coach, you can go ahead and give an opening statement, and we'll open it up to questions.
WAYNE TINKLE: Yeah, just a tough one. Obviously got off to a tough start, put quite a hurdle in front of ourselves, but loved the way that our guys battled back. Obviously just with our numbers and everything, saw that we ran out of gas.
But love that we battled to the very end, and you gotta give Oregon a lot of credit. They took advantage of that, got a lot of baskets out in transition and at the rim and kind of separated there down the stretch.
But tough one, we know, but it's -- it's funny how life goes, the feelings that we had just over a year ago to now, and there's some valuable lessons in there that we've got to continue to learn and grow from as a group and as individuals.
MODERATOR: We'll open it up to questions.
Q. Wayne, it seems like this game was kind of a microcosm of just really the season as a whole. You get so close, but you just wasn't able to get over the hump. Just talk about that for a little bit.
WAYNE TINKLE: Yeah, it's a good point. And it's the first thing I thought of walking into the locker room. We faced a lot of adversity, and just -- it's been rough. A lot of close losses. We haven't been able to really practice other than the last day, five on five, for about six weeks.
A lot thrown at us, but I'm proud of the group for -- it's a really, really tough year, don't get me wrong. But the way they held it together, our core group, these two guys right here and some others that just find a way to keep trying to battle and give ourselves chances.
I thought some of our last games, thinking of USC at home and Washington State games, our guys showed a lot of heart, and we can definitely build off that moving forward.
Q. Wayne, following up on that, you said you learned life lessons from this. What sort of lessons do you take out of it and things you may do differently heading into the next year?
WAYNE TINKLE: What we talked about as a group is, obviously, lost a lot of games, been beat by some good teams, and I think there was times we weren't quite as united as we needed to be to where we were battling ourselves a little bit. A lot of new pieces mixed in with some vets. And I just searched high and low. I didn't do a very good job, obviously, of bringing that collective group together.
But what we talked about in the locker room is when you're in a family environment, when you're in a working environment, when you're part of a team, you really gotta put the greater good in front of anything individual, and that's what we said when we were in the locker room.
And I talked about children, raising children, and their gonna make -- step in some puddles from time to time. You gotta love them through it, you gotta discipline them, but you're always going to love them and hope that they learn and grow. And so we challenged our guys with some of those things in our final words.
Q. Jarod, if you can speak to how difficult this is to where you have one of the better performances you have in the season, and it is in a losing effort and it ends the season in this way, where, obviously, you guys wanted to get this one to avoid a season sweep from them and also to stop this losing streak.
JAROD LUCAS: I mean, of course we want a win. For myself, I'm somebody that really loves the win, and it's hard, and Coach mentioned it. You can take from this season a lot of life lessons. You've got to be grateful.
As you're playing the game of basketball, there's so many other things going on in the world, and we're very fortunate to be playing this game we're playing today. So just gotta be grateful and find the positives.
Q. Wayne, you talked about the fact -- you talked a lot about parts of the season not being the team culture, not being the definition of what you want the culture of the program to be. Is the roster, as currently constructed, tenable with the issues that you seem to have alluded to this year?
WAYNE TINKLE: I mean, it's a valid question, but we're 20 minutes from that horn going off. So we'll get together, and we'll make sure that we get things fixed.
We built this -- when we got to Oregon State, we had the year with all the devastating injuries, similar to this year but different circumstances, and built it from there.
So we'll make sure that we learn from the things that maybe we didn't think jibed during the season and know that we'll be back for sure.
It hurts right now, but I know we've got the people in place, and we'll get back to our winning ways because that's what we've been able to do.
Q. Wayne, if you could just sum up the season just as a whole in a nutshell, what would it be?
WAYNE TINKLE: You mentioned it earlier. Today's game was kind of -- a little bit of those things were -- we dug ourselves a hole, we battled back, and just weren't able to finish.
And obviously it's a devastating season. I've got to take the blame. And the big thing moving forward is we know what it takes. And we talked about the cornerstones when we got to Oregon State in 2014: Character, discipline, selflessness, accountability.
We've just gotta make sure we get back to that type of culture again and learn and grow through all the tough times we had this year, and I know we'll be stronger for it. I know we will.
Q. For Roman, how will you remember the season, and what are the lasting memories you take away from it?
ROMAN SILVA: Really just take as much positive out of the season as I can. It's been a great year to spend with the coaching staff and my teammates. Things didn't go the way we wanted it to. The relationships that I've made here is going to last a lifetime.
WAYNE TINKLE: Roman is going to be a huge success. He was probably more banged up than most guys. Never heard a peep from him, never skipped a beat, played through it all.
He's got the heart of a champion, and I know he's going to go on to great things because of who he is, where he comes from and what he's all about, for sure, just like the rest of the group.
Q. Wayne, you addressed certainly having a plan for getting back to winning ways, and I know this is probably a little bit of a question for Scott as well, but in your conversations with Scott, how confident are you that he is going to stand by you in terms of being here for the future?
WAYNE TINKLE: No doubt at all. No doubt at all. We have had some great conversations throughout the year the last few weeks. He knows what we've done in Oregon State, and this is a blip on the radar and that we'll get it fixed. So no doubts at all there.
MODERATOR: One last one.
Q. Jarod, last year, I think about Ethan, I think about Zach. Zach, of course, you guys always talked about is kind of the glue guy in the locker room. Looking at last year, this year, has it become more important to you, at least, like what the value of those guys are in the locker room and how you guys want to introduce maybe some of them going forward?
JAROD LUCAS: Yeah, those guys are great leaders. Before then we had Tres. I've been here for three years, and Roman did a great job as well leading us. And I realize you gotta be a great leader to lead some of these high-level teams.
But, like you said, I learned a lot from those guys. They're great leaders. They helped us make that run last year. I just gotta keep on finding ways to be a better leader and try my best to be the best I can every day.
MODERATOR: Thank you, guys.
WAYNE TINKLE: Thanks.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports