Cardinal Outmuscle Oregon State; Offensive Rebounding Key

Oregon State opened the game in a 1-3-1 zone to try and flummox Stanford with an attacking defense, but they ended up being the ones who looked confused. They hit a couple early shots but they started to crumble slowly after that, unable to do anything on offense especially.

The early game was defined by poor defensive play and energy from the Beavers. Derrick Bruce was an early sub and he was an early culprit on poor rotations. Gears were turning as he was running through his assignments, but that made him a step slow to react which led to a couple easy threes for the tree. That got them to 16-11, and then the next issue reared it's ugly, horrifying dragon head: Offensive rebounding. They had 9 at the half.

For as passionate and sharp as the Beavers were against the Ducks on Sunday, they lacked the energy of the Cardinal. Stanford was banging from the get-go and were moving the Beavs around. That coupled with poor rotations led to easy jump shots and even easier looks at the rim. OSU went over 6 minutes

That limited the Beaver offense, they were constantly going against a set defense and Furd did a good job stifling the Beavers. OSU was held to 36.4% on the half to 48.3 en route to a 37-24 Stanford halftime lead.

A quick 4 from Eubanks opened the half and the Beavs seemed to have more life, but they were still getting crushed on the boards. They were unable to attack the boards and the Cardinal were happy to swoop in. OSU allowed seven second chance points, and it swayed the game back to Stanford with a 46-35 'Furd lead at the 15 minute mark.

Eubanks is the main offense, but Stanford continued their onslaught attacking rotations and the offensive boards. After 10 miuntes they already doubled their offensive rebounds. The defense was improved but Stanford just kept getting opportunities and beat the OSU defense on first attempt as well.

To their credit Oregon State continued to fight, Tres Tinkle got an and-1 (but missed), Stephen Thompson Jr. got a triple and a deuce to pull it back to 7. A cheap Eubanks foul and a transition foul pushed the lead back out to 10 though. Stanford continued to push, but then Michael Humphrey fouled out. He had been all over the boards, especially in the second half.  It made no difference though and OSU was unable to string together stops and they traded points until the end of the game and OSU took their first conference loss of the year in disappointing fashion, dropping to 1-1 in the Pac-12, and 10-3 overall. Stanford moved to 2-1 in conference, and 9-5 for the season.

Oregon State hosts California (12-4, 2-1) in their next outing, Saturday night at 6:30 at Gill. The Bears dropped a 68-65 contest at Oregon earlier tonight.