Oregon State Still Perfect

Oregon State moved to 4-0 on the season with a 71-59 win over UC Santa Barbara who dropped to 1-2. The Beavers opened up the game with a 5-0 run with a dunk from Drew Eubanks and a three from Gary Payton ll. After being down by six the Gauchos would come back to take the lead off of a pair of free throws from Michael Bryson to take the lead 8-9. It was their only lead of the game.

The Beavers then went on a 7-0 run to give them some breathing room for a 15-9 lead at 7:29 in the half. UC Santa Barbara would close the lead to three before Olaf Schaftenaar hit a three to run, after a free throw from Maclolm Duvivier, Gary Payton hit a three to extend the lead to 10 29-19.The Beavers took command of the game and never looked back. They had a 43-35 lead at halftime. Oregon State never took their foot off of the pedal, at one point in the game they extended their lead to 18 points. They never gave up the lead during the second half in a dominating win.

Gary Payton again was the player of the game for the Beavers with 21 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals. He leads the team in scoring averaging 15.7 points, rebounds 7.3 and assists 6.0. Fellow starting guard Malcolm Duvivier added 12 points and forward Drew Eubanks scored. The Beavers also got help from their bench with Freshman guard Stephen Thompson Jr. scoring 12 and Tres Tinkle added eight. UC Santa Barbara leading scorer was John Green with 16 points.

It was good to see Oregon State's defense at full force as they had five blocks and three steals. The only bad thing you could take away from the game was that the Beavers had 13 turnovers to the Gauchos nine. Something they will have to tighten up, when they take a step up in competition during Pac-12 play. They however distributed the ball well with 18 assists and were 10 of 18 shooting three pointers.

The Beavers next game is Tuesday against Valparaiso ( 5-0) where Oregon State plays hosts game time 6pm on Pac-12 Network.