Oregon State Men Travel to The Desert This Week

OSU games can be heard live on KEX 1190 AM in Portland/Salem and KEJO 1240 AM in Corvallis/Albany.

Jay John returns home to Tucson to take on the Arizona Wildcats on Thursday. Photo: OSU Athletics

CORVALLIS - For the first time since the end of November, the Oregon State men’s basketball team (8-8, 0-3) hits the road.

The Beavers are in Arizona this week seeking their first Pacific-10 Conference victory. They play #10 Arizona on Thursday and Arizona State on Saturday.

GAME #17: Thursday at McKale Center: Oregon State at Arizona (12-2, 3-1, #10 AP, #8 ESPN/USA Today) at 6:30 PM MT/5:30 PM PT.

GAME #18: Saturday at Wells Fargo Arena: Oregon State at Arizona State (6-9, 0-4, hosts Oregon on Thursday) at 4:30 PM MT/3:30 PM PT.

ON TELEVISION:

The Arizona game will be televised by FSN Northwest and FSN Arizona.

The Arizona State game will be shown on FSN Arizona only.

At least 15 of OSU’s 18 Pac-10 games will be televised.

ARIZONA SERIES:

The Beavers trail in the all-time series with Arizona, 17-44.

The teams split last year with each side winning at home.

OSU’s 75-65 win at home over the then-#24 Arizona was the Beavers’ largest margin of victory over the Wildcats since 1989-90.

The Beavers are fighting history, as they have a long drought in Tucson with 24 consecutive road losses.

The last win there was in 1982-83, the year before Lute Olson arrived.

RANKED OPPONENTS:

The Beavers are trying to beat a ranked opponent for the fourth consecutive year.

So far, however, it’s been difficult and OSU is 0-4 against ranked teams this season.

OSU has lost this season at home to #24 Nevada, #12 LSU (the last time OSU hosted two ranked non-conference opponents in one season was 1957-58), #20 Oregon (the last time OSU played three ranked opponents before the end of December was 1977-78) and #1 UCLA (OSU fell to 2-26 all-time against top-ranked teams).

If the Beavers can pull off the upset at Arizona, it’ll be their first win on the road against a ranked team since January 1985 (at Washington) and their first win at a top 10 opponent since January 1976 (also at Washington).

ARIZONA STATE SERIES:

OSU leads the all-time series, 36-31, with Arizona State.

But, the Beavers have lost eight straight in Tempe, last winning there in 1997-98.

OSU lost both regular-season meetings last year.

In the first game at Gill Coliseum, ASU won 65-63 on a shot with eight seconds left in overtime.

It was also the game where Lamar Hurd suffered what turned out to be a season-ending injury.

However, OSU came back from a 15-point second-half deficit without three injured starters to beat ASU at the Pac-10 Tournament, 71-68.

LAST GAME:

When one team shoots 66.0% from the floor and the other is at just 31.5%, it usually equals a lopsided score.

Unfortunately for the Beavers, they were on the lesser end and suffered a 91-46 loss to USC at Gill Coliseum on Saturday.

The Beavers kept the game fairly close for the first 12 minutes, but the Trojans went up 49-26 at halftime and it only got worse from there.

Only Angelo Tsagarakis (10 points) was in double-figures for OSU.

Lodrick Stewart and Taj Gibson combined for 48 points on 18-for-21 shooting for the Trojans.

C.J. GILES:

OSU’s fortunes in 2007-08 got a boost this week when 6-foot-10, 240-pound center C.J. Giles transferred from Kansas.

Giles began taking classes on Jan. 8th but is not eligible to play until Dec. 8th, 2007, due to NCAA transfer rules.

Giles was a highly recruited prep player at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle.

He played two years at Kansas, which made the NCAA Tournament both seasons.

He averaged 6.2 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.5 blocks(seventh in the Big 12) as a 2005-06 sophomore.

During summer 2005, he was one of 21 players invited to the USA Basketball Under-21 National Team trials

Adding comments to these stories has been disabled. View the current sports stories Salem-News Sports