For the second year in a row, Tres Tinkle of Missoula Hellgate High School has been named the Gatorade Montana Boys Basketball Player of the Year. The award was announced Friday.
The 6-foot-7, 215-pound senior wing averaged 24.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.2 assists this past season, leading the Knights (22-2) to third place in the Class AA state tournament. The state’s returning Gatorade Boys Basketball Player of the Year, Tinkle shot 58.5 percent from the field, 36.3 percent from 3-point range and 76.1 percent from the free-throw line. He also contributed 2.1 steals and 1.5 blocks per game. Earning All-Tournament honors in each of his final three prep seasons, Tinkle led Hellgate to the 2013 Class AA state championship as a sophomore and the 2014 Class AA state title game as a junior. He concluded his prep career with a school-record 1,544 points.
Tinkle has maintained an A average in the classroom. A member of the National Honor Society and his school’s Link Crew leadership program, he has volunteered at the Missoula Food Bank and as a youth basketball instructor.
“It’s clear he has put the work in to become the most versatile player Montana has seen in years,” said Guy Almquist, head coach of Helena Capital High. “He combines an obviously high skill level with a championship-level demeanor. It’s rare to see someone so talented easily fit into the framework of team basketball, which he has done his entire career.”
Tinkle has signed a National Letter of Intent to play basketball on scholarship this fall at Oregon State University, where his father Wayne Tinkle is head coach of the men’s basketball program.
Tinkle is the fourth Gatorade Montana Boys Basketball Player of the Year to be chosen from Hellgate High School.
The award recognizes outstanding athletic excellence and high standards of academic achievement and exemplary character demonstrated on and off the court. It distinguishes Tinkle as the state’s best basketball player.
The Gatorade Player of the Year program annually recognizes one winner in the District of Columbia and each of the 50 states that sanction high school football, girls volleyball, boys and girls cross country, boys and girls basketball, boys and girls soccer, baseball, softball, and boys and girls track & field, and awards one National Player of the Year in each sport. The selection process is administered by the Gatorade high school sports leadership team in partnership with USA TODAY High School Sports, which work with top sport-specific experts and a media advisory board of accomplished, veteran prep sports journalists to determine the state winners in each sport.
Two-time winner Tinkle joins Gatorade Montana Boys Basketball Players of the Year Daine Muller (2012-13, Skyview High School), Danny Robison (2011-12, Billings West High School), Tanner Roderick (2010-11, Bozeman High School), Josh Huestis (2009-10 & 2008-09, C.M. Russell High School), Andy Garland (2007-08, Sentinel High School), and Derek Selvig (2006–07, Dawson County High School) among the state’s list of former award winners.
For a complete list of past winners and the announcement of the Gatorade National Player of the Year, visit www.gatorade.com/poy.