Pardon my temporary absence. I think I'm all better now.

After cutting Iowa State's lead to six with three minutes remaining in the game, the Beavers couldn't mount a late surge, as Iowa State went on to defeat Oregon State 63-50 in front of 13,688 at hilton Coliseum in Ames, Iowa on Saturday night.

Fresh off their first win of the season at Fresno State, the Beavers (now 1-5) weren't able to keep up with Iowa State in the fifth game of this year's Big-12/Pac-10 Hardwood Series. Last season, the Cyclones defeated the Beavers 71-64 in overtime at Gill Coliseum.

Daniel Deane led the Beavers with 14 points and six rebounds, and was the only Beaver in double figures. He now leads the team in scoring with 60 points on the season, for an average of 10.0 per game.

In taking a glance over the stat sheet, there were some definite things that Coach Robinson has probably alrady addressed with his team:

Field Goal Percentage, specifically 3-point FG%

It's tough to harp on this team for having a low field goal percentage against Iowa State because they've done a fairly good job with shooting this season. Belive it or not, the Beavers came into the game ranked fifth in the Pac-10 and 38th in the nation in field goal percentage (48.7%).

Against Iowa State, the Beavers shot 20 of 50 (40.0%) from the field, which works out to be shy of their season average. However, the Beavers were just 2 of 19 from behind the arc, for a measly 10 percent. Just 2 of 19! 

Both makes came in the first half, when the Beavers were 2 of 13. In the second half, the Beavers only attempted six three pointers, and missed every one.

The Beavers also underachieved from the charity stripe, where they'd been shooting 61.9% coming in. OSU was 8 of 15 from the line on the game, for 53.3%. 

Oregon State's season percentage dropped from 48.7% to 47.2% over the course of the game, which isn't so bad after how horrendous the Beavers were from behind the arc. That puts the team at 62nd in the nation, and they maintain their spot at fifth in the conference.

Turnovers

Oregon State won the turnover battle, but didn't take advantage. The Beavers turned the ball over 11 times, the Cyclones 13. However, Iowa State scored 20 points off of Oregon State's 11 giveaways, and Oregon State only scored a half dozen points off of Iowa State turnovers. 

Steals

Even though we didn't capitalize offensively on Iowa State's turnovers, it's good to see that we're applying strong pressure on defense. Oregon State stole the ball eight times from ISU (Seth Tarver had 3), compared to the goose egg Iowa State has in the steals column. 

Assists

Iowa State scored 21 baskets, and 19 of them were assisted. Oregon State, on the other hand, scored 20 baskets, and only nine of them were assisted. It's tough to say just by primarily looking at the statsheet, and I didn't watch the whole game, but I think it's fair to say that the Cyclones were getting better ball movement to find the open man. Maybe it's a side effect of Coach Robinson's offense, but that was a glaring difference between the numbers of the two teams.

(image by Charlie Neibergall, via ESPN)