Oregon State men’s basketball gets ‘gutsy’ win over Washington State to keep pace in WCC

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Oregon State’s Michael Rataj, seen here earlier in the season against San Diego, had 21 points Thursday in the Beavers’ home win over Washington State.

CORVALLIS — It isn’t often that the Oregon State men’s basketball team has struggled on its home floor this season.

The Beavers entered the week 13-1 at Gill Coliseum in 2024-25 with an average margin of victory of 18.8 points per game — 27th best in the nation.

On Thursday, though, OSU produced some uncharacteristically sloppy first-half play and was forced to dig its way out of an early hole. Thanks to key contributions from a pair of unsung heroes, the Beavers stayed in contention until their star players found their shooting strokes and took over the game.

Oregon State topped Washington State, 82-74, at Gill to secure a much-needed bounce-back win. In the process, the Beavers improved to 17-7 on the year and 7-4 in West Coast Conference play to set the stage for a big Saturday matchup with first-place Saint Mary’s, which suffered its first league loss of the year Thursday.

“Gutty win,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said. “Obviously, turnovers and our defense were the two things that were down. We just seemed to be in a little bit of a fog. I don’t know if it was the time off or not, but we made big plays when we had to.”

Michael Rataj led the Beavers with 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting and a team-high eight rebounds. Parsa Fallah added 17 points and Nate Kingz chipped in 15.

At times this year, Oregon State has struggled for consistent scoring outside of its starting five. Against the Cougars, though, Josiah Lake II (eight points in 22 minutes) and Isaiah Sy (nine points in 19 minutes) provided a pivotal first-half spark while the Beavers were still finding their footing.

“We just haven’t gotten much of a punch,” Tinkle said of Oregon State’s bench scoring this season. “If you’ve got one or two of your starters not in the groove offensively, you’ve got to get something off the bench. We haven’t had that the last few…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/oregon-state-mens-basketball-gets-140129293.html

Author : Statesman Journal

Publish date : 2025-02-07 14:01:00

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