It's the game we've all been waiting for: the match up between the conference's two worst teams. It's 0-12 vs. 1-11. It's a battle for 9th place in the Pac-10. Major bragging rights are at stake.
Arizona State at Oregon State. 3:00 p.m. on Fox. Sports. Northwest.
Yes, if there were to be a commercial for this game (is there? Didn't think so...) what you read above would probably be it. We have two teams that are happy to stay within 10 points of an opponent, and two teams that are happy when they can keep games competitive for 40 minutes.
So, some notes: Arizona State plays one of the slowest paced games in D-1, with an average of 61.1 possessions per 40 minutes. They're pretty much as bad of shooters as Oregon State is, but they are pretty beastly about getting offensive rebounds, thanks to macho man Jeff Pendergraph. Speaking of Jeff Pendergraph and offensive rebounds, he's the 17th best O-Rebounder in the nation. This leads the Pac-10 by far, and to put this into persepctive, Kyle Jeffers (our leading offensive rebounder) is ranked 209th. You'll be hearing Pendergraph's name a lot today.
That's Pendergraph. (AP Photo/Roy Dabner)
Another man who can do some damage is freshman guard Christian Polk, who is actually ASU's leading scorer right now.
Out of Arizona's top six scorers, only one is a senior. This just goes to show how young this Arizona State team is, but it also shows how much better they will be in the coming years. Arizona State won't be around the bottom of the Pac-10 for long, so Oregon State better get their act together if they don't want to be #10 in the conference next year.
One again, Oregon State will play another game where they are actually shooting a better field goal percentage than their opponents.
Hopefully we can bring it to Arizona State just like we did to Arizona two nights ago. If we play with that same effort and intensity, that should put the Beavers on top, and earn us our second conference win. Ironically, the first win was against Arizona State.
Go Beavers!
--JB--