Beavers Hope to Get Back on Track Against No. 20 WSU, Washington

Last year, the Beavers swept the season series with WSU by winning 59-50 at WSU and 71-62 at home.

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CORVALLIS - The first half of Pac-10 Conference play comes to an end this weekend with the Oregon State men’s basketball team (9-11 overall, 1-6 Pac-10) heading north to play the Washington schools.

The Beavers will play the next four games on the road, as well as seven of their final 11 regular-season games.

GAME #21 — Thursday at Friel Court: Oregon State at Washington State (16-3, 5-2, #20 AP, #18 ESPN/USA Today) at 7:00 PM.

GAME #22 — Saturday at Bank of America Arena: Oregon State at Washington (11-7, 1-6, hosts Oregon on Thursday) at 1:00 PM.

ON TELEVISION:

There is no television for the Washington State game. The Washington game will be televised nationally by FSN.

Steve Physioc and Marques Johnson are the announcers.

ON THE RADIO:

Oregon State’s games can be heard live on the radio on the Beaver Sports Network (which includes 18 stations throughout the Northwest, including KEX 1190 AM in Portland/Salem and KEJO 1240 in Corvallis/Albany).

Mike Parker, a three-time state sportcaster of the year, calls the action.

WASHINGTON STATE SERIES:

OSU leads the all-time series, 161-111.

The 161 victories are the sixth-most by one team over another in NCAA Division I history.

The 272 games are the fourth-most between two teams in NCAA Division I history.

The Beavers have won three straight and 12 of the last 15 games between the schools, which includes a 4-3 record in Pullman.

Last year, the Beavers swept the season series by winning 59-50 at WSU and 71-62 at home.

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 0-5 against ranked teams this season.

At home, OSU has lost 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).

On the road, the Beavers have lost at #10 Arizona (their 25th straight loss in Tucson).

If the Beavers can win at #20 Washington State, it’ll be the program’s first road win over a top 25 team since Jan. 5th, 1985 (at #15 Washington).

WASHINGTON SERIES:

Washington leads the all-time series, 143-134.

The 277 meetings are the third-most between two schools in NCAA Division I history.

The Huskies swept the season series last year (69-65 in Seattle and 96-63 in Corvallis).

OSU has won one of the last six games (at home in 2004-05).

Looking back a little farther, the Beavers have won eight of the last 14 meetings.

LAST GAME:

A strong effort for most of the game wasn’t enough as OSU fell to Stanford 67-56 on Saturday at Gill Coliseum.

The Beavers took a 34-29 lead at halftime (their first lead at the half during Pac-10 play) and still had a five-point lead at 48-43 with under nine minutes to play.

It all went south from there, as the Cardinal heated up, going on a 9-0 run to regain the lead, and the Beavers went eight minutes without a field goal.

The Beavers had an excellent game on the turnover front, forcing 18 while committing only seven (the team’s fewest in about two years).

But Stanford shot 55.3% from the field while OSU was at just 37.7%.

Marcel Jones led the Beavers in scoring again with 20 points and added seven steals, one shy of the school record.

INJURY UPDATE:

Sasa Cuic missed the Stanford contest after suffering a bruised left elbow in the California game.

Wesley Washington wasn’t expected to play against Stanford after spraining his right wrist vs. California, but came off the bench for 17 minutes against the Cardinal.

Both practiced on Monday and are expected to be available this week.

JONES:

Junior forward Marcel Jones leads the team in scoring (16.9 ppg, fifth in the Pac-10).

He also leads the team with 6.1 rebounds (12th in the Pac-10). His three-year improvement has been quite dramatic, as he has gone from 3.9 ppg as a freshman to 9.2 ppg as a sophomore to his current mark.

In the last four games, he has three games of 20+ points and has averaged 23.5 points (including 9.8 in the first half, 13.8 in the second half).

He has eight games this season with 20 points or more, which is second in the Pac-10.

With 35 points against Northern Colorado, Jones ended a long drought in the Beaver record book as he became the first OSU player to score at least 30 points since Brian Jackson put in 32 against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Jan. 4th, 2000.

The last Beaver to score more points in a game was Corey Benjamin with 36 points against Oregon on Jan. 31st, 1998. His seven steals vs. Stanford was one shy of Brent Barry’s single-game school record.

TURNOVERS:

OSU has a positive turnover margin at 3.1 (fourth in the Pac-10). In their 20 games, the Beavers have committed more turnovers than their opponent just three times (Hawaii, USC and Arizona).

They went 10 straight games without committing more turnovers than the opponent before the USC game.

OSU is forcing 16.8 turnovers per game and is making 8.2 steals (second in the Pac-10).

Last year, OSU had a final turnover margin of minus-2.5 and forced 13.0 turnovers per game.

REBOUNDS:

OSU won its first six games when outrebounding the opponent before losing to Oregon (OSU had a 32-30 edge on the boards).

Since then, OSU has been outrebounded in six straight games.

Rebounding margin is unfortunately a negative 2.6 overall.

Three different Beavers have pulled down 12 rebounds in a game five times this season: Marcel Jones twice (vs. Portland and at Arizona State), Kyle Jeffers twice (at Hawaii and at Northern Colorado) and Michael Johnson once (vs. Mercer).

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