2021 NCAA tournament live updates: Sweet 16 scores and analysis from Saturday’s games
INDIANAPOLIS — The Tinkle family of Montana, then of Europe, and nowadays of Oregon, is the first family of American basketball, and don’t you argue with that, you myopic East Coast snob.
Their number of family members stands at five — two parents, two adult daughters, one adult son — and their number of family members who played in Division I stands at, wait, let’s check it, five. The five Tinkles have treated four universities to 7,224 points and 3,684 rebounds. If you’re one of those who recoils at diving through the intricacies of basketball, you ought not go messing around at their house in Corvallis, Ore., which is not to say the two Rottweilers and the Double Doodle will chase you off or anything.
Many a night, Wayne Tinkle, who once coached Montana into three NCAA tournaments and has helmed Oregon State from 11-11 earlier this year to 19-12 and the Sweet 16 in arguably the best story left in this male March Madness, comes on home from another night at the mercy of the scoreboard. Often everybody’s there, as they’ve been this pandemic year. Sometimes, they begin consolation: “They know exactly what to say to make him know everything’s going to be okay,” Lisa McLeod Tinkle said of her daughters.
