The last week of the regular season gets started on Friday as the Beavers take on the Arizona Wildcats. Tip off is scheduled for 7:00 pm, and you can watch the game on PAC-12 Oregon, listen on Oregon State All Access, or follow the team on twitter for updates. Let’s check out Arizona.

Arizona Wildcats (6-21 overall, 2-14 in PAC-12)

In their first meet up in Corvallis, the Beavers dominated Arizona for a 40 point victory, one of their biggest this season. The Wildcats have not improved since then, picking up wins against fellow conference bottom dwellers like Washington and Colorado, but have been noncompetitive in games against stronger opponents. They sit at the bottom in most PAC-12 statistical categories, including team scoring, scoring margin, and rebounding margin.

The most interesting member of the Wildcats is Freshman forward Sam Thomas. Thomas is the team’s second leading scorer with an average of 10.2 points per game, behind only guard JaLea Bennett, who has 14.3. Thomas is also the team’s leading rebounder, with 196 so far this season for an average of 7.3 per game. She also leads the team in steals and blocks. While the team as it stands is not very good, Thomas will be an interesting player for Arizona to build around in the next few years.

Prediction

Unless the Beavers are looking ahead to Sunday’s game against Arizona State, this should be another win. Oregon State still needs to watch out for steals, which have been the bane of this season, but Arizona is not in a particularly good position to capitalize on any Beaver mistakes. Oregon State should be able to absolutely dominate when rebounding, which could lead to a lot of scoring for Marie Gulich. This will probably be a bit closer than the game in Corvallis, but I think OSU still wins by at least 10 points.