Oregon State Men’s Basketball: Offensive woes continue, Beavers lose 84-59 to Utes

The new year hasn’t been kind to the Oregon State men’s basketball team. The Beavers played a stretch of some of their best basketball on the season in January but were not able to convert their play into any wins. Now starting down their five-game losing streak, the Beavers traveled to Salt Lake City to try and sweep the season series against Utah who is the only other team below Oregon State in the conference rankings.

The Utes were able to execute revenge from the earlier defeat at Corvallis scoring a season-high 15 three-pointers as a team to take down the Beavers 84-59. In the first matchup of the season, Jarod Lucas had 25 points while this matchup was mostly held in check. Roman Silva and Lucas each had 12 points as Maurice Calloo chipped in 11. Five Utah players eclipsed double-digits points with Lazar Stefanovic leading the Utes with 15.

Calloo started in place of Warith Alatishe who was nursing an injury following the Oregon game. He didn’t waste any time making his presence known on the court as he got the Beavers on the board with a three-pointer in the first minute of the game. Lucas was able to respond to two Utah three-point makes with two of his own to hold the Beaver lead at 16-12 at the 13:45 mark in the first half. The Utes then started to warm up from behind the arc and eventually grabbed the lead 22-20.

Despite Roman Silva dominating down low early the hot shooting continued from the Utes who grew their lead quickly to double digits with over seven minutes remaining in the first half and the home team leading 34-23.

At the 11:45 mark in the first half, Utah outscored the Beavers 29-10 thanks in large part to three-point shooting and took a 46-33 lead into halftime.

Utah shot the ball extremely well in the first half shooting 53% on FG’s and making 9 threes at a 50% clip. The Beavers had a promising start coming out of the locker room after Calloo knocked down a three followed by two Silva close-range buckets but Utah’s offense was still outpacing the Beavers and held a 52-40 lead at 15:18.

After Oregon State cut the lead to eight at 12:40 with a Lucas made three that forced Utah to call a timeout, Utah then responded with two threes from Riley Battin that shot the Utes lead back up to 63-45. The Utes continued to open up the lead after Lazar Stefanovic made his fifth three-pointer of the game and Utah’s lead grew to 68-47.

Tre’ Williams knocked in a three to cut the lead to 20 but Utah had a response to everything the Beavers did on this night as Rollie Worster made another Utah three to get their lead back up to 25. Dexter Akanno dunked the last points on the night for Oregon State after being set up by Williams as Utah was able to salt away a couple of minutes of the game and get the win 84-59.

The Beavers were held way below their season average point total (68.6) but will have to put this one in the review mirror quickly as they will continue their road trip at Colorado on Feb. 5 at 3 p.m. on Fox Sports 1.