Beavers lose second in a row

The Huskies were coming off a 25-point drubbing down in Eugene and needed a win in order to keep pace in the Pac-12 title hunt.

The Beavers were just trying to keep their dimming hopes a of top-half Pac-12 finish alive.

Although Oregon State made a valiant effort against the University of Washington (20-6, 10-3 Pac-12), the Beavers fell to the Huskies 75-72 Sunday in front of the biggest crowd of the year at Gill Coliseum.

Despite the loss, which keeps them in a tie for eighth place in the Pac-12 — a far cry from their high expectations at the start of conference play — coach Craig Robinson remained very positive after the game.

"I felt like this was a turning point for us and I am hoping that they feel the same way that I do," Robinson said. "That effort against Washington, who I think is the best team in this league and the most talented, to be able to stick with them and fight and execute our game plan was great."

After Thursday night's lackluster loss to Washington State University, Beaver Nation was happy to see the Beavers competing and being more aggressive against a very good team. Clearly everyone would have been more happy with a win, but it is evident that the young Beavers need one more year before they will truly be an elite team.

The most notable improvement from Thursday's game came from the team's leading rebounder, Eric Moreland, who didn't grab a single board against the Cougars. Moreland finished with nine rebounds, six points and five blocks Sunday.

"I can't come out and play like [I did on Thursday] so I wanted to make sure I came out with much more energy and I wanted to make sure I came out more aggressive today and try to help the team as much as I could," Moreland said.

After a spill of Dippin' Dots on the court at the 16:33 mark of the second half delayed the game for nearly 10 minutes, the Beavers went cold and didn't score a field goal for over six minutes of game time.  

It may have appeared that the long delay sapped the Beavers of some of their momentum, but Robinson didn't think so.

"I thought we had a fantastic crowd and they were behind us the whole time and as soon as the game resumed they were just as loud as they had been before," Robinson said. "I thought that given how intense the game, I would have had to give Jared (Cunningham) a rest and Ahmad (Starks) a rest in that second half.  They were given a chance to rest without having to come out of the game (because of the delay)."

This game was a microcosm of the Beavers season.  A few different ball bounces — if one or two things happening differently — the Beavers are in an entirely different place in their season right now.

Beaver Nation can be happy with the effort and realize that this team is like a beautiful flower that has yet to fully bloom but at the same time it is frustrating to see a team with such potential lose so many close games.

Knowing this squad, Robinson and the Beavers won't dwell on this loss. With two tough road games coming up, the Beavers need to learn from this defeat and move on one day at a time.

"I think coach is happy with the defense and I think we are with our effort," Moreland said.  "We executed and it's a tough loss. We wish we could have got this one, and it wasn't because of effort and it wasn't because of defense like the other games. I think this game did a good job of defense, but they got a couple open threes. I think our effort was there on offense and on defense."

Cunningham followed up his 33-point effort from last Thursday with a 23-point effort Sunday, but needed 20 shots to reach that number.

Freshman guard Challe Barton started in place of Joe Burton, who played a season-low 10 minutes.

Robinson said the switch was made to help the Beavers match up with the Huskies talented backcourt.

Ahmad Starks had one the better games he's had in recent weeks, scoring 14 points, grabbing seven rebounds and adding four assists and three steals.

Fellow sophomore guard Roberto Nelson, however, struggled, missing all six of his shots from the floor.

The Huskies were led by Portland native Terrence Ross, who scored 21 points and grabbed 13 rebounds.

One of Cunningham's primary challengers for Pac-12 Player of the Year, freshman guard Tony Wroten, scored 12 points on just 4-of-12 shooting.

With the win, the Huskies moved into a tie for first with California. Both teams are five games up on the Beavers.

Oregon, Arizona and Colorado occupy spots three through five in the conference standings, each four games up on OSU.

The Beavers are tied for eighth with Washington State, and if the regular season ended today, they'd be the No. 9 seed in the conference tournament due to their 0-2 record against the Cougars.

Oregon State will travel to the Bay Area this weekend to take on Stanford and Cal. The Beavers will play the Cardinal at 7 p.m. Thursday in Palo Alto.

Alex Crawford, sports writer

Twitter: @dr_crawf

sports@dailybarometer.com