This is becoming a special college basketball season for a number of programs that, in recent years, have known nothing other than misery. Teams that have slogged through hopeless seasons over the past half-decade are finally beginning to dig out of a cave and rediscover what it means to live in the light.
Two of the foremost examples of programs that have, at long last, managed to reclaim a good bit of dignity are DePaul and Oregon State. These are programs that were both at the top of the college basketball food chain in the late 1970s and very early ’80s, with Ray Meyer holding court in suburban Chicago and Ralph Miller presiding over a powerhouse in Corvallis. These schools suffered NCAA tournament heartbreak even in their best years — most memorably on this day, a day which changed the face of college basketball on television — and only once did either of them make the Final Four during this stretch of college basketball history (DePaul in 1979). Yet, it was undeniably true that for several years, DePaul and Oregon State stood tall. These weren’t fringe NCAA tourney programs. They possessed quite a lot of clout.
Once Meyer and Miller retired, though, both the Blue Demons and especially the Beavers failed to sustain their glory years. The passage of time made it harder to recapture the days when a top-tier season was a legitimate expectation and not just a hope. Over the past few years, few teams had fallen farther or harder than DePaul and Oregon State. If you had wanted to select a Final Four of failures among teams from prominent basketball conferences, these schools would have joined Wake Forest and Auburn in the discussion.
This season, however, DePaul and Oregon State have ceased to be doormats, and while DePaul seems to be gaining more publicity due to its presence in the Big East and its proximity to major media markets, Oregon State is the team with a more legitimate shot at the NCAA tournament.
If you want to find the most remarkable story in college basketball season, taking a quick trip to Corvallis would not put you on the wrong path.
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Yes, DePaul defeated Seton Hall on the road Thursday night to stay at the top of a contentious, cluttered, and very deep Big East. The Blue Demons were the talk of College Basketball Twitter in the aftermath of their win. However, at 11-9, DePaul is still a team whose postseason ceiling is likely the NIT. The Blue Demons have very little margin for error if they want to put on their Dancing shoes.
Want to find the upstart team with a better chance of finding an NCAA tournament home and turning back the clock to 1981? It’s tucked away in the Pacific Northwest on Pac-12 Network broadcasts.
A few hours after DePaul’s Thursday-night win, Oregon State — despite a thin bench and all sorts of limitations on its own roster — turned back UCLA in Corvallis to move to 4-2 in the Pac-12, which would be good enough to claim a first-round bye in the Pac-12 tournament. There’s a lot of season left, of course, but so far, the Beavers have put themselves in position to earn an NCAA berth over the next seven weeks.
How amazing is it that UCLA — a number-four seed in last year’s NCAA tournament and a program that should have the pick of the litter when it comes to recruiting — is stuck at 3-3, looking up in the standings at a team without one of its better scorers, sixth man Victor Robbins?
In order to appreciate Oregon State’s magic carpet ride, read this story by Connor Letourneau of The Oregonian. It has taken a special touch from the bench to give this team the best possible chance to win every night. Clearly, Wayne Tinkle was the right man at the right time for OSU.
It was widely felt that after six seasons in which to do something in Corvallis, former coach Craig Robinson had to move on. Oregon State finally mustered up the willingness to act, and while Tinkle didn’t look or feel like a splash hire, there was one thing about his resume which certainly stands out in the present moment: a history at the University of Montana.
If you look elsewhere in the Pac-12, former Montana coach Larry Krystkowiak has Utah in line to contend for the league title and a top-four seed in the NCAA tournament. You probably wouldn’t see a Montana coach enter the radar screens of the Southern California- or Arizona-based programs in the Pac-12, but for the Rocky Mountain or Northwest programs in the league, successful Big Sky or Mountain West coaches can become appealing targets. It has become very apparent in a very short time that Tinkle — with the resourcefulness he’s shown in managing players’ bodies and minds — is up to the challenge in Corvallis. With a win over Arizona already tucked away, and with only two truly bad losses on the resume (Auburn and Quinnipiac), Oregon State is going to be in the hunt on Selection Sunday as long as it can finish at .500 or better in the Pac-12 and win one Pac-12 Tournament game.
DePaul should be enjoying a season in which it’s no longer being kicked around, a season in which it can give as well as it gets, and enter Big East games knowing that it can compete at a high level.
Yet, for all the fanfare the Blue Demons are receiving in Chicago and the New York-New Jersey corridor, Oregon State is the “we were once great” program with a better shot at crashing the Dance in March.
Think pre-March basketball is meaningless? Don’t say that to Wayne Tinkle or anyone else in Corvallis over the coming weeks.
