Beavers Battle Bobcats and Prevail

It was a frenetic affair from the get go, which initially seemed to play into the Beavers' athletic advantage but as the game continued it became more apparent that the Bobcats were agents of chaos. Sending the house after every offensive rebound sped up the game until both teams were frothing at the mouth.

The Beavers were able to handle it initially as they were able to turn the high pace into good looks, including a couple post moves by Drew Eubanks. They kept bringing up the ball against a Quinnipiac team that was sacrificing transition defense for a chance at extra offensive possessions and after the Beavers ran out to a 19-12 lead the Bobcats were able to run the score all the way back to a 1 point game at 19-18 with 12 minutes left.

From here the game got sloppy as the Bobcats were pushing the game at such a pace that the Beavers started rushing right into turnovers. The Quinnipiac offense was just as sloppy but they kept themselves on life support with all of their offensive rebounds. This kept for a close game, OSU would pushout the lead to 5 but it came right back after Derrick Bruce was unable to connect on some threes that the Bobcat defense was allowing.

From there a slew of sloppy baskets and free throws got the teams to 31 all. From there Langston Morris-Walker showed up in the clutch again, with a huge 3 that was answered by Quinnipiac, but he followed it again with a huge putback and-1 to get the Beavs on top and with momentum going into the locker room with the score at 37-34.

When both teams came back out the Beavers made their typical (barring the Kansas game) second half run with a simple efficient offense that started with more moves from Eubanks in the post. More importantly the rebounding improved and with the second chance pool drying up for the Bobcats they were left to flounder. Panic began to set in for the Bobcats, as the lead swelled. They began to force more passes and as they were unable to generate second chances and the lead bulged to 18 points.

OSU was not ready to stomp on their throats just yet however as Quinnipiac made a 5-0 after hitting rock bottom with an 18 point deficit, reducing it to 13 at 52-39 with 13 minutes remaining. From there the Beavs would trade baskets, gaining a shot every third possession (roughly). The key continued to be shutting down the offensive rebounding of the Bobcats as they really could not consistently score against the halfcourt defense of OSU.

Oregon State was able to coast to the 82-61 victory from there and can look forward to conference play after a successful three game stretch leading up to the Civil War.

Go Beavs!