Beavers men's basketball loses tough game to Huskies

In my last post, I said the Beavers won't win without shooting and rebounding well. Unless the Huskies collapse. Well, if the Beavs would have rebounded a little better and taken care of the ball then they would have won.

It's hard to comment on the game without being able to watch it. But all those 3rd chances the Huskies got were really frustrating. And I wish I could have seen that last shot by Stephens. Because the way Parker was calling it, the shot sounded forced and bad. Couldn't we have got a little better shot than that? Oh, and Wesley Washington was huge coming down the stretch. I hope he becomes our defensive stopper this year and grows into something really special over the next two years.

Huskies pressure OSU - Corvallis Gazette-Times

“Obviously, we missed our point guard,” OSU coach Jay John said. “With Lamar not being in there, it changed how UW was going to defend us. They came out and strangled and chased and trapped. With 28 turnovers it was success. They took a game plan and attacked us at a point where we are weak.”

[...]

“I thought Wes did a nice job,” John said. “The turnovers are still an issue. I felt he provided a spark and gave the rest of our guys some confidence. He was able to calm them down. And from the defensive standpoint, he battled. I’m pleased with the fight he brought to the game.”

[...]

“It could have been a different outcome if we had 10 less turnovers,” John said. “We played defense and battled on the boards. This script isn’t any different. We turned the ball over.”

The Oregonian - No. 10 Washington 69, Oregon State 65 Beavers have 28 turnovers in loss

"It was physical, but we were ready for it," said forward Marcel Jones, who led the Beavers with 14 points. "They got a lot of easy buckets. We had 28 turnovers, and I'm sure they scored about 20 easy baskets. It wasn't like they were killing us in the halfcourt. We just had way too many turnovers."

So, was the Huskies' defense that good, or were the Beavers that bad?

"No, the Huskies' defense was good," said Beavers guard Jason Fontenet, who started in place of Hurd. "And we weren't that bad. At times, we got a little careless, but I think we played well. We gave it our all out there."

Well, the Beavers need to take that kind of effort into Pullman and salvage a win. That would set them up to have a chance at post-season.