Justin Joyner Encouraging Oregon State to "Play With Pace" in First Season in Corvallis

First-year head coach Justin Joyner discussed several topics during Oregon State men's basketball's preseason media day, including how the roster is shaping up and what's he's seen so far in the team's exhibition games. With less than a week until opening night, the team is feeling good about where they are and the chemistry that they have built. However, figuring out a rotation is still a work in-progress.

"Yeah it's probably one of the biggest challenges," Joyner noted. "We've tried to mix in groups. We want certain guard combinations playing with other guard combinations every day, you do that and you learn a lot about your team, so we wanna continue to speed that up."

In addition to a preseason trip to Canada, the Beavers played two exhibition games against Michigan and Cal. The former against Joyner's old team, and Joyner was happy with his team's performance in a five-point loss to the defending national champions.

"Simply put, I like the fact that we were tough," Joyner noted. "We played to our identity, and that's hard to do. I think sometimes when you play against really good competition it can bring out a lot in you, it's something we need to replicate though. Thinkin' about that game, they had some guys we felt like we could leverage from an offensive standpoint. So for that we have to make good decisions, and I think our guys did a good job using their leverage to get shots for other guys, and that's really important."

Joyner noted that the lineup rotations the team used in the preseason shouldn't necessarily be what fans expect to see on opening night and throughout the season.

"We're still in the evaluation process, I think the cool thing about our roster is we have the ability to play big and to play small. I think our six guards are really good, I think our three-headed monster at the five is very much formidable. Xayvion Staton has the ability to play the four and the five with his defensive prowess and his rebounding. And then you've got our wing types in Kahu and Rasmussen, we're gonna need those guys to step up for us. But we're still in the evaluation phase, we don't know exactly what our rotation is going to look like, but we hope to be deep and competitive."

Joyner also commented on one early contest that Beaver fans have circled on the calendar: a November 19 contest against the Oregon Ducks at the Moda Center in Portland.

"It's a heck of a game, and I think it's a game that this state needs. Obviously football wasn't able to get it done, and we feel like that's a game that needed to happen. So we're excited about it, should be a competitive game. Obviously they've had some flux in staff over there, but nonetheless it's a good program and we feel like we're on the rise as well."

While his team performed well in preseason contests, Joyner noted he's not jumping to conclusions about the state of his team until they begin regular season competition.

"Offensively we played with pace, we played with space, we were aggressive, we got a lot of stuff done in transition. I think defensively it was a little bit more of a challenge. I think just being able to figure out what formula for success works game by game on both sides of the ball is what we're still evaluating. But I do think we have the ability to play multiple styles, I do think we have a roster that is suited to win both in transition and in the mud in half court."

Oregon State open the season on Monday, November 2 against Weber State at Gill Coliseum in Corvallis.

Add us as a preferred source on Google