Men’s basketball notebook

One day at a time?

Every team has a motto. A go-to phrase. For the Oregon State University men's basketball team, it's "ODAAT" — short for "One Day at a Time."

Practice by practice. Game by game.

But the Beavers (11-5, 1-3 Pac-12) have dropped three of their last four games.

Through two weeks of Pac-12 play, they reside in a tie for 10th in the conference standings.

Some fans may have already hit the panic button, thinking: "we need to reel off five, six or seven wins in a row to become relevant again."

Coach Craig Robinson's squad?

Still nothing but "ODAAT."

"Actually it's easier to go one day at a time when it's this way," Robinson said. "When we were winning a lot of games, that's when you start looking ahead, sort of counting your chickens before they're hatched. When you're 1-3 all you care about is being 2-3. This has helped us become more focused on what's directly ahead of us."

Reviewing the

Stanford game

The Beavers would be 2-2, aiming for 3-2, had one or two things gone differently in Saturday's 103-101 quadruple overtime loss to Stanford University at Gill Coliseum.

Robinson was asked if, after reviewing the game film, he second-guessed any decisions he had made.

"Well that happens every game and since there was more time in that game there were more decisions I wish I had back," Robinson said.

One thing Robinson specifically didn't question was the decision to let his player's go one-on-one with the game on the line.

On two separate occasions, sophomore guard Ahmad Starks failed to score after having the ball in his hands with the shot clock off and the game tied.

"I may be completely wrong, but I thought our guys did a good job of trying to run their stuff and trying to take their man when you could," Robinson said. "For those of us who have played, you know that that's a players game when you're coming down to that and you are just trying to find a way to put the ball in the basket."

Nelson's

shoeless threes

Lost in the craziness of Saturday's game was a sequence midway through the first half that seemed destined for Sportscenter.

After getting mixed up with a teammate on defense, sophomore guard Roberto Nelson lost a shoe.

"He said, ‘Coach, my shoe!' I wasn't going to waste a timeout for that because we had the ball," Robinson said. "Challe (Barton) looked at Roberto and didn't throw it to him, and I was wondering why he didn't throw it to him, but I think it was because he didn't have his shoe on."

Barton passed it to Cunningham, who either didn't notice that Nelson was missing a shoe or simply didn't care. Cunningham whipped it to Nelson, who promptly knocked down a trey.

After Stanford failed to score on the ensuing possession, Robinson assumed the officials would stop the game for his shoeless guard.

"And then Roberto shoots another shot.," Robinson said. "And (Stanford) calls a timeout because he just banged two threes — shoe or no shoe."

Robinson chuckled when asked if he'll draw up a play in which Nelson shoots without a shoe. And Nelson said family members have been telling him to start playing without a shoe.

Nelson's back-to-back shoeless threes gave the Beavers a 24-15 lead and probably would have been the main takeaway from Saturday night had the game not lasted 3 hours and 15 minutes.

Last year's

ordeal in Arizona

After facing the University of Arizona Thursday, the Beavers will travel to Tempe to take on Arizona State University.

This year's game at Wells Fargo Arena figures to be much different than last year's.

Last year, after half the roster "violated team rules," Robinson used a season-low six players (Omari Johnson, Kevin McShane, Joe Burton, Angus Brandt, Roberto Nelson and Daniel Jones) in a 80-66 loss to the Sun Devils on March 5.

Johnson, McShane, Burton and Nelson — who scored a career-high 34 points — logged at least 39 minutes.

Asked if it'll be nice to play the Sun Devils with a full complement of players, Robinson paused before remembering last year's ordeal.

"You just had to bring that up," he said, drawing a laugh from the contingent of media seated before him. "Yes. Yes it will."

Then, this: "And it's nice to know I don't have to worry about anything like that happening again."

Grady Garrett, sports editor

sports@dailybarometer.com