Beaver basketball 2025-26: New faces, depth and shooters

Wayne Tinkle begins his 12th season as Oregon State coach with nine new players and an entirely new starting lineup (courtesy OSU sports communications)

CORVALLIS — The landscape has changed dramatically at Oregon State in recent years for Wayne Tinkle, who begins his 12th season at the OSU helm with an almost entirely new cast of players.

Time was when Tinkle could recruit players, develop them over the course of three or four years and reap the benefits during their junior and senior seasons.

No more. NIL and the transfer portal are the culprits. After a 20-win 2024-25 season, the Beavers lost their entire starting five to the portal for an NIL kitty that approached a total of $5 million.

Senior forward Michael Rataj, an All-West Coast Conference selection as a junior, moved on to SMU for $2.1 million. Senior guard Nate Kingz reaped $750,000 for his transfer to Syracuse. The other three starters — second-team All-WCC center Parsa Fallah (Oklahoma State), guard Damarco Minor (Pittsburgh) and forward Liutauras Lelevicius (TCU) — hauled in a collective $2 million.

The year before, the Beavers lost their best two players — guard Jordan Pope to Texas and forward Tyler Bilodeau to UCLA. Tinkle hopes Oregon State’s NIL funding will improve enough that he will be able to retain much more of his talent next spring. Until then, the veteran coach will adjust to the times.

For the past couple of years, Tinkle softened his coaching approach with players and also spread out playing time more than he desired. He has told his assistants — Stephen Thompson, Marlon Stewart, Chris Haslam and Roberto Nelson — that he intends not to compromise his values this season.

“I had to change my mindset on how to coach the kids and keep them happy,” says Tinkle, who will turn 60 in January. “(OSU coaches) have realized we have to be who we are. Some (players) may leave because they don’t get enough minutes, or they can get more money somewhere else. We will be who we are, coach up the ones who are out there, and recruit again in the next wave.”

The Beavers added nine new players, including only two freshmen, for the 2025-26 season that begins with a 2 p.m. Saturday exhibition game against Western Oregon at Gill Coliseum. One of the five scholarship returnees, 7-foot junior Gavin Marrs, will miss the season after offseason shoulder surgery.

“I’m coming along well, but doctors told me a complete recovery won’t happen until after the season,” Marrs told me Monday.

Oregon State’s current roster, including walk-on Kaan Yarkut from Turkey, features 10 international players and only four from the States — guards Josiah Lake II, Dez White and Ja’Quavis Williford and center Noah Amenhauser.

The foreigners include guards Malcolm Christie (New Brunswick, Canada), Keziah Ekissi (France) and Matija Samar (Slovenia), forwards Isaiah Sy (France), Olavi Suutela (Finland) and Stephen Olowoniyi (Australia) and centers Johan Munch (Denmark), Yaak Yaak (Australia) and Jorge Diaz Graham (Spain).

The 6-2 Lake and the 6-7 Sy were the top two reserves as sophomores on last season’s OSU team that went 20-13 overall and finished fifth in the WCC with a 10-8 record. Both are likely starters on a 2025-26 squad that Tinkle considers one of his deepest in talent at Oregon State.

“Good depth, good size, decent athleticism, but a lot of good shooters,” Tinkle says, assessing his roster. “We have multiple guys who can make plays off the bounce, which we didn’t have a year ago.”

With more than a month of practice under their belt, Tinkle says he has seen progress in many areas.

“The guys have had strong chemistry almost from the start, but they have gotten a lot more competitive with each other, which is good,” he said. “We are pushing them hard to get to the level they need to be at. They come to work every day. Their attitudes are good. No pouters. Very selfless. All good qualities, but in a sense, we need to get a little nasty when we get across the line. They are learning that.”

I watched the Beavers practice on Monday, and was impressed with a lot of things. Just about everyone, including the bigs, can pass and put the ball on the floor. During a scrimmage at the end of practice, many of them played like their hair was on fire.

“We compete,” says Lake, the former Tualatin star who averaged 6.9 points in 23 minutes a game last season while shooting .482 from the field, .368 from 3-point range and .908 at the foul line. “We get after it. Guys are going to dive for loose balls, make hustle plays, get offensive rebounds. That’s the core of this team. We are going to take the extra steps, as individuals and as a team, to get things done.”

The 2024-25 Beavers shot a solid .363 on 3-point attempts last season, with six players making 25 or more from beyond the arc. Lake thinks the ’25-26 group could be even better.

“We have a lot of guys who can shoot from the outside, and it is different from the past two teams,” he says. “With this team, it’s 1 through 5. Our bigs can shoot out there, too.”

Oregon State beat California 76-66 in a scrimmage at Moraga, Calif., last Saturday. The Beavers shot .519 from 3-point range (14 for 27) against the Golden Bears. Christie led the way with 15 points, knocking down 5 of 8 treys. Munch scored 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting and White contributed 11 points, nine rebounds and seven assists.

The Dean of Portland Sports is now on BlueSky.

The point guards are Lake, White and Ekissi, and there is little doubt that fans will see all of them on the floor for considerable minutes this season.

Lake — whose father played guard at Oregon State from 1998-2000 — has added 10 pounds to a frame that now carries 185. He spent much of the summer in Corvallis working on his body and features to his game that the coaches had pinpointed. In his third season, Lake, one of the Beavers’ best perimeter defenders last season, has taken over a leadership role.

“He has come so far from last year,” Tinkle says. “We have been asking for it, even in the summer. He is pulling guys in for talks, getting the team huddled up … the maturity he is showing is exciting.”

White is a 6-2, 180-pound junior guard who averaged 14 points and shot .371 from the 3-point line at Missouri State last season. He spent his freshman year at Austin Peay. White wears the same No. 0 as did Pope and looks a bit like him as a player.

Dez White, a junior transfer from Missouri State, has a good chance to crack the starting lineup for OSU this season (courtesy OSU sports communications)

“He is a more mature version of what Jordan was back then,” Tinkle says. “A really good scorer, and he can shoot it. When he first got here, he was a little tentative off the dribble, but he has come a long way with that.”

Ekissi is a 6-3, 210-pound guard who averaged 12.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 3.6 assists as a freshman at Howard last season, shooting .429 from 3-point range. Like White, he can fill it from long range.

“We want to play with more pace this season,” Tinkle says. “JoJo (Lake) set the tone with that when we started practice, and Dez and Keziah are starting to get that way. We like that 3-headed monster (at the point). They can all handle the ball and get us into our offense. They are good defenders, too. They are scrappy.”

Christie and Samar will probably get the first looks at the shooting guard spot. Tinkle got a close-up of Christie while he was playing for Oakland last season. The 6-5, 200-pound senior scored 18 points in Oregon State’s 80-74 win over the Grizzlies at Honolulu, though he shot only 5 for 15 from the field, including 4 for 12 from beyond the arc.

“Malcolm is a guy every (opponent) is going to have to game plan for,” Tinkle says. “He can shoot the lights out. He has a quick trigger and can score in bunches.”

Samar has been out of high school for two years. The athletic 6-5, 190-pound freshman helped Slovenia to the 2024 U20 EuroBasket championship game. Last season, he led the Spanish Seguda FEB league in scoring at 19.8 points per game. He reminds me of the Lithuanian Lelevicius in a lot of ways.

“He is maybe even a better shooter than L.T.,” Tinkle says. “He is more mature than most freshmen and a good all-around player. What I love, he is not afraid to stick his nose in there and fight. He has a little bit of nasty in him.”

Williford, a 6-7, 190-pound sophomore, played sparingly for the Beavers last season.

“He has really come on since practice began,” Tinkle says. “He is more comfortable in our system now, knows where to pick his spots.”

The 6-7, 200-pound Sy seems a likely starter at small forward.

“Isaiah had a great spring and summer for us,” Tinkle says. “He was mostly a catch-and-shoot guy a year ago, but he is better at making plays off the dribble and has become a scrapper. He has improved his defense.”

Olowoniyi is a 6-8, 210-pound junior who averaged 13.9 points and 6.8 rebounds while shooting .591 from the field at Southern Indiana last season. He was at Virginia Military Institute as a freshman. The sinewy southpaw was as impressive as any player at getting to the basket and finishing during Monday’s practice session. A knee injury kept him from working out with the Beavers this summer.

“We love his athleticism,” Tinkle says, “but it will take him a little while to catch up because of all the time he has missed.”

All of Oregon State’s five “bigs” have a chance to garner playing time this season.

Munch seems a cinch. The sophomore, who played with Denmark’s national team this summer, has grown to about 7 feet and 225 pounds.

“Playing on the national team was great experience for Johan,” Tinkle says. “He has great length and passing ability. He is a skilled finesse player who is learning how to be physical.”

Amenhauser is a 7-2, 270-pound junior who averaged 10.8 points and 6.0 rebounds while shooting .557 from the field last season for Coastal Carolina. He was at Grand Canyon as a freshman.

“Noah stayed in the paint at (Coastal Carolina), but he has great touch from the outside,” Tinkle says. “He won’t live out there because he is a big, physical presence. There is a warrior in there that we are going to help get out of him.”

Tinkle is also high on Suutela, a 6-10, 220-pound freshman who was a starter for Finland’s U20 Eurobasket team last season.

“He is one of our best percentage 3-point shooters, a physical guy, a true 4,” Tinkle says. “He is further ahead than most freshmen and might be one of the first guys off the bench.”

Yaak is a 6-11, 230-pound junior who averaged 10.6 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.8 blocked shots at Colorado Mesa JC last season. He played at New Mexico State as a freshman.

“A live athlete, a good rebounder and shot-blocker,” Tinkle assesses. “He can shoot it and finish at the rim. If we can get him to trust himself, he can really help us.”

Diaz Graham is a 6-11, 205-pound senior who played sparingly at Pittsburgh the past three years.

“He is very skilled, with a high basketball IQ and a good competitive edge,” Tinkle says. “He is learning how to be scrappy. He will figure in amongst our bigs.”

The Beavers averaged 76.2 points last season. That number might go even a little higher this season.

“We are going to run and try to score in transition,” Tinkle says. “We want to get it up and down the floor and get more easy baskets. Our mindset will be, when we get our first quality shot, we want to take it.”

Tinkle believes the Beavers’ defense “will be improved” from a year ago.

“We have to key on being a tough defensive team,” Lake says. “We are going to have off shooting nights, so that’s when we have to channel our defense and lock into our principles.”

Junior guard Josiah Lake from Tualatin will provide all-around play and leadership for the Beavers (courtesy OSU sports communications)

They will play some matchup zone and have been working on full-court pressure.

“We had a great trapping bunch with Gary Payton II and Malcolm Duvivier our first year here, and then with Tres (Tinkle), Stevie (Thompson Jr.) and Ethan (Thompson) later on,” Wayne says. “We’ll do that some to slow (opponents) down, to be aggressive and take seconds off the shot clock.”

Tinkle says the Beavers have been focusing on rebounding and transition defense in recent practices.

“We feel we have a good complement of things that will work well for us,” he says. “But we still have to get better at everything.”

Oregon State finished behind Saint Mary’s, Gonzaga, San Francisco and Santa Clara in the WCC standings last season. Pomeroy national preseason rankings have those teams atop the league again in 2025-26, with Gonzaga at No. 8, Saint Mary’s at 55, USF at 84 and Santa Clara at 105. Oregon State, which ended last season at No. 80, is projected at 129, just ahead of Washington State at 137 among the nation’s 365 Division-I teams.

“All the (WCC) teams ahead of us lost some valuable pieces, but we lost all of our starters, and (Pomeroy rankers) don’t know what kind of talent we have,” Tinkle says. “The rankings don’t concern us. We will control what we can control. This can be a better team than we had a year ago, especially in terms of chemistry and selflessness.”

Oregon State went 10-3 in non-conference games last season — 8-1 at home, 0-1 on the road and 2-1 on a neutral court. This season’s non-conference schedule “is more difficult,” Tinkle says. It includes games at Oregon (No. 30) and Arizona State (75) and a pre-Thanksgiving tournament in the Virgin Islands that will provide three games with good competition. The eight home games feature only two teams ranked by Pomeroy among the top 200 — North Texas (No. 88) and Cal Baptist (191).

The Beavers’ regular-season opener is at home on Nov. 3 vs. North Dakota State. The WCC opener is Dec. 28 at Gill against Santa Clara. The goal, says Lake, is to be an NCAA Tournament team.

“That is where we want to be at the end of the season,” he says.

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