March 11, 2008

Corvallis, OR (UWIRE) -- It's official - the Oregon State men's basketball team made history after Arizona State (19-11, 9-9) defeated the Beavers (6-24, 0-18) 77-64 Saturday afternoon at Gill Coliseum. OSU became the first team in history to go winless in conference play since the Pac-8 became the Pac-10. It's not a distinction that any team wants to be associated with, but with the tournament remaining, there is no time to sulk.

"It hurts," OSU freshman Calvin Haynes said. "Every time we lose it hurts more and more, but we still got the Pac-10 tournament to turn things around. It's not really over yet."

The Beavers played hard throughout, but ultimately they just didn't have enough firepower to keep up with the Sun Devils.

Early on it looked as though Arizona State was going to run the Beavers out of the gym. Jeff Pendergraph made an uncontested dunk to give ASU a 9-2 lead just two minutes into the game. Just when it looked as though the Beavers were going to get blown out, Lathen Wallace responded like he did for much of the game with a three pointer.

The Beavers fought hard and after Marcel Jones and Seth Tarver hit back to back three pointers with 10:47 to go in the half, Oregon State took the lead at 22-20.

Not to be outdone, the Devils responded with back to back 3-pointers of their own and after a Derek Glasser lay-up and ASU was up 28-22 and led 38-30 at the half.

The second half was an uphill battle the whole way for the Beavers. ASU led the entire half, but the Beavers never gave up. On several occasions OSU cut the lead to under four points, but they could never quite get over the hump.

With just over seven minutes to go in the game, Haynes hit a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 63-60, but that would be the last gasp for the Beavers. Ty Abbot hit a 3-pointer for Arizona State and with under four minutes to go James Harden followed with a dunk down the lane and that would pretty much seal the game.

For the Beavers, Wallace scored a career-high 22 points on 6-of-13 shooting from three-point range. In his final home game as a Beaver, Marcel Jones added 14 points and had a team-high six rebounds. Josh Tarver had six steals in the game and Haynes scored nine points and seven assists.

Once again Oregon State shot poorly. OSU shot 34 percent from the floor and took 39 3-point shots, making just 13. The Devils shot nearly 57 percent from the floor and out rebounded the Beavers by 10. ASU also took 27 free throws to Oregon State's eight, a stat that some of the OSU players felt was a little unjust.

"We feel like when we're on the court we're playing eight against five," Haynes said. "I know we got a bad record, but everything is obvious when you see somebody get fouled and when you see somebody don't get fouled. We play just like they play. We bleed just like they bleed and we just feel like sometimes we get cheated unfairly on the court. And I can speak for the whole team about that."

Coach Kevin Mouton had a more calm approach to the situation speaking of Haynes statement, "That's just a young freshman who's frustrated."

The regular season is over, but the Beavers are guaranteed at least one more game at the Pac-10 tournament and one more chance to end their 20 game losing streak.

"I told our guys when we first got into the locker room get their heads up," Mouton said. "The crazy thing about what's going on right now is we get to play on Wednesday. You guys get another chance. I get another chance to coach and you guys get another chance to make some baskets and make some plays."

(C) 2008 OSU Daily Barometer via UWIRE