13 Days ‘Till OSU Basketball: Beavers Beat Carroll College in Exhibition

Oregon State beat Carroll College 79-60, Wednesday night in Gill Coliseum.

It was a slow start for OSU offensively, who only scored the ball from inside five feet or at the free throw line for most of their first half field goals. They only took five threes in the first half and made two of them. Free throw shooting was also a concern for the full game, the Beavers made about 50% of them but took 30(!). The Beavers went into the locker room at half holding just a 32-31 lead.

The second half was much better in terms of offensive production. Zach Reichle and Ethan Thompson made a couple threes and mid range shots respectively, and Wayne Tinkle decided to put a little more pressure on the Saints offense.

That pressure proved to be too much for the Saints, as the handed OSU about 5 points on consecutive possessions and the Beavers never looked back.

The offense was rusty, but there were a couple Beavers who, I thought had some nice stretches. Sean Miller-Moore came in early in the second half and provided the Beavers with some spark on defense. He took the ball away from Carroll College when OSU started pressuring full court and got a couple layups from it. He also converted a very nice and-1 from a beautiful pass by Tres Tinkle on a fast break.

Another player who I was pleasantly surprised by was Freshman wing, Julien Franklin. Franklin didn’t enter the game until mid-way through the second half, but quickly contributed a nice mid-range jumper from the left side of the basket and a three pointer from the top of the key. He would add another mid range shot to let him finish with 7 points in limited action. If they Beavers can get some production like that from him, it would really help the offense this season.

All in all, the Beavers looked a bit rusty to start this game out, but that’s why they play these exhibition games — hopefully Wayne Tinkle can get them together in practice this week and fix some of the issue in time for OSU’s next exhibition game against Warner Pacific on Oct. 29.