Bruins Quash Overmatched Beavers Hope For An Upset Victory In Corvallis

on a positive note we did split on the road, and we have beaten this cal team before…

I don’t think that can be overstated. It’s going to be a very sad selection show for the Pac 10. That said, I was loving how RN stuffs the ball with attitude. RN and TH are two guys that are keeping my interest and hope alive for this season.

Darren Collison had 17 points, 18 assists and 6 rebounds with Chris Paul out tonight. He has averaged 15.1 points, 7.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds in games he’s started.

It seemed like both teams were trying not to win. Sloppy, pathetic basketball. How I miss the days of the real Ben Ball Warriors. OSU is the kind of team we were used to slaughtering by 40+ with high-flying dunks from RW, AA, JS, etc.

Now the Belgrade Bricklayer is mishandling the ball on the way to rack. How the mighty have fallen.

The Good:

Roll, The Glue, Shoot 50% from the field, and 5 assists. He continues to be our best player.

RN, 7-8 from the field, 12 rebounds.

Lee, 3-4 from the field, 3 -4 from the line. His first decent offensive game in a while.

TH looked good as usual. He wins must jumping contests against taller guys. I’d have him jump center.

The team played with good effort, and some patience. They were the better team and deserved to win.

Defensively, they found the shooters and forced Calvin Hayes to shoot 5-20 from the field.

Jerime Anderson played well. Let me repeat. JA played well. It was a first and it followed a long period of inactivity. He has gotten the message that his playing time is not assured simply because there is no one else. He made 3-4 from the line, and had three assists. He hustled on defense.

The Bad:

MAH looked nervous and had trouble passing over the taller Oregon St. guards. He did make his only three, but he had two turnovers in 8 minutes, which would mean 10 over a 40 minute game. Bad. Sorry about that cuz I love him.

Keefe, one dunk in 12 minutes. No rebounds. 2 fouls. I CANNOT UNDERSTAND HOW A GUY WHO HAS BEEN PLAYING BASKETBALL SINCE HE WAS SIX DOESN’T KNOW WHAT A MOVING SCREEN IS. Even on TH’s dunk he set a moving screen. He gets one of these every game. CBH, the fundamentals coach, must miss this.

The Ugly:

Drago’s lackadaisacal play. He shows no intensity. He lets players beat him to loose balls. He throws lazy passes. I can’t take it.

RN also needs to move his feet in the zone, both on offense and defense. (Keefe plays the defensive end well, moving his feet properly, which is why CBH starts him in the zone.

Unforced turnovers in the closing minutes with a big lead. Dragged pivot feet. Yuk.

Fouling players on three point shots in the closing minutes. Run at the shooter but jump to the side to harass the shot. Don’t risk running into the player. Drago undercut the man, and then claimed to be standing straight up. Undisciplined crap.

Overall: It was a 10 pt win on the road. The team played well in stretches and played well enough to win. The defense held OSU to 37% from the field.

I love my team. I love a Bruins victory. Go Bruins!

We won because we shot well from all over the floor and from the line — 66% FG, 80% FT’s.

They shot 37% and 53%.

Here’s the big stat — even though we out rebounded them 25-19, they took 16 more shots than we did 51-35. We were lucky they could not hit.

Our 20 turnover kept us from blowing them out. At one point in the game, I noted in the thread that 18 of their then 30 points were points off of our turnovers. Unbelievable.

Our shooting percentage was high because RN was 7-8. So, cut back on outside shots, go inside — hmm we’ve heard that before around here.

More interesting to me — we only took 9 3’s and made 4. Last year, Donny Mac said, very correctly, that if we shot more than 30 3’s, we’d lose. I know we shot more than 30 on Th and wonder how many we shot in other losses.

Nelson was a beast on the boards 12 and interestingly, ND, who in some games has rebounded well had only 1.

TO leader, not one of our guards — ND with 6, RN with 4, ML 2, MR 5. JA played 16 min with 3 assists and 1 turnover.

So, we improved on the boards, at the ft line, and shooting percentage, improved our shot selection and nearly threw the game away with 20 turnovers.

But, winning ugly is still winning.