On a night where Arizona State looked as beatable as ever, Oregon State couldn't effectively attack the Sun Devil zone defense, and couldn't stop Jeff Pendergraph in the second half as the Sun Devils went on to defeat the Beavers 49-38 on Saturday night in front of 7,449 at Gill Coliseum.
Although only scoring on six field goal attempts in the first half, the Beavers held Jeff Pendergraph scoreless in the first 20 minutes, although ASU's Jamelle McMillan, who made his first Pac-10 start, poured in four three-point baskets in the first half.
Much like how Oregon State contained Oregon's Tajuan Porter in the second half of last week's Civil War game, the Beavers held McMillian to just two points in the second half.
But what McMillan was to the Sun Devil offense in the first half, Jeff Pendergraph was to the Arizona State offense in the second half.
The six-foot-nine Pendergraph (pictured, right) rattled off all fifteen of his points in the second half, most of them coming as a result of Oregon State taking a chance and extending their zone defense. That left Roeland Schaftenaar to play one-on-one with the NBA-bound forward.
"We were hoping (Schaftenaar) could just hang in there and handle him on his own,'' said Robinson. "I'll take partial responsibility for that.''
The Beavers handled the Sun Devils much better than they did on January 8 in Tempe, but compared to how the Beavers have been playing as of late, this game was a letdown.
From Buker's postgame report: Robinson said he was "happy with the effort, and happy with the defense but I wasn't happy with our execution and I wasn't happy with our mental toughness today. ... these guys haven't won this many games before. They don't know what to do to get that fifth win, and that's my job.''
Oregon State was led by Rickey Claitt, who scored 13 points and had three assists in the game. Roeland Schaftenaar and Lathen Wallace added nine points each. Calvin Haynes, Oregon State's usual go-to player, was held to just 2 of 8 shooting, was 0 for 4 from behind the arc, and scored just four points in his 39 minutes.
The Beavers shot a season-worst 32.6 percent from the field. Arizona State, who shot 28.1 percent from the field, had one of their worst shooting games as well.
Arizona State, who basically only played six players in the game, was led by Jeff Pendergraph with 15 points. Jamelle McMillian scored 14 points and dished out four assists.
The Beavers will now travel to Washington to play the Huskies on Thursday, and the Cougars on Saturday.
--Jake (jake.buildingthedam@gmail.com)