CORVALLIS – Kendal Manuel was still five months away from committing to play basketball at Oregon State when Arizona last came to Corvallis.
He only learned about how close the game was via snapchats from Tres Tinkle, then a fellow high school senior in Montana who had already committed to be part of the Beavers the following season. Tinkle then shared his username and password so that Manuel could stream the game’s conclusion online.
“That was crazy seeing everybody packed in here,” Manuel said. “I didn’t really expect that outcome.”
The stunning 58-56 upset of then-No. 7 Arizona, which went on to narrowly miss the Final Four, was the high-water mark of a surprise first season for head coach Wayne Tinkle in Corvallis. Picked to finish last in the Pac-12, the victory over the Wildcats marked the second of eight league wins and added to a string of program upsets over the Wildcats dating back to 1999.
But an upset over the No. 5 team in the nation this season would mark an even greater surprise.
Arizona (20-2, 9-0 Pac-12) is back at full strength after the return of sophomore guard Allonzo Trier from a 19-game suspension for positive performance-enhancing drug test. The Wildcats are the only undefeated Pac-12 team in conference play, while OSU (4-18, 0-9) is the lone winless squad and will be without top scorer Tres Tinkle (broken wrist) for the 17th consecutive game. And as the undermanned Beavers try build momentum off their best offensive performances of league play last week at Colorado and Utah, UA will bring one of the nation’s elite defenses to Gill Coliseum.
If Oregon State has any advantage, it may come if Arizona was overly focused on its matchup with No. 13 Oregon on Saturday in Eugene. Arizona coach Sean Miller dismissed that possibility, noting that no player on his roster had won at Oregon State. Due to scheduling restrictions, OSU only played the Wildcats in Tucson last season and guard Parker Jackson-Cartwright and forward Dusan Ristic were the two active players two seasons ago still suiting up.
Olaf Schaftenaar (30), Victor Robbins (4), Langston Morris-Walker (13) and Gary Payton II (1) celebrate after beating Arizona in 2015. No player remains on the OSU roster.Randy L. Rasmussen/Staff
“Gill Coliseum has been a tough place for us. We haven’t had great success there,” Miller told reporters Monday. “… When you’re a team like them, you’re looking for those highlights. Certainly with us coming in undefeated, it would be a big, big I think boost for them and really for Betmatik their future if they could beat us.”
As is the cyclical nature of college basketball rosters, the Beavers also have limited holdovers from two years ago. Only Matt Dahlen and Tanner Sanders – two walk-ons on the 2014-15 roster – will be available from that group Thursday.
Even if few players remain on either side, the victory two years ago certainly made an impact on OSU’s current roster.
Freshman point guard JaQuori McLaughlin was still committed to Washington as a high school junior at the time of the upset, yet watched on television and rooted for Oregon State.
“It got my attention a little bit,” he said. “It showed what they can do against a top team.”
Sophomore center Gligorije Rakocevic was in Los Angeles, where he moved from Montenegro for high school, and said he was shocked by the result even after his OSU commitment.
“The defense was unbelievable,” Rakocevic said. “They were able to talk, man. They were talking. They were covering every single position. It was just an awesome game.”
MBKB Highlights: Oregon State beats #7 Arizona!!
Although the Oregon State coaching staff has used film from its 2014-15 group this season to instruct its current group, Wayne Tinkle said it was unlikely he would harken back to any clips from the win before Thursday due to the extensive personnel changes.
But he did say he might express lessons from the game, when he credited a “mature group” with executing the slow-it-down style that held Arizona – the 22nd highest scoring team in the nation – to a season-low 56 points.
“They had learned to buy into the game plans as far as what was going to give us the best chance to get a W,” Tinkle said. “… That’s what we’re trying to teach these young guys to understand from game to game. There may be different styles of play to give ourselves a chance to win. It just hasn’t quite clicked yet, but we’re getting there.”
— Danny Moran
dmoran@oregonian.com
@DannyJMoran
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