UCLA at Oregon State Preview and Game Thread

The Bruins start this weekend off with a game in Corvallis against the Beavers. On paper, this is another game that should be winnable for the Bruins.

But, when you have a coach that doesn’t seem to understand that it’s ok for him to tell his players to get the ball to a certain player, you can’t really expect to win every game you should.

Last season, the Bruins beat the Beavers in Corvallis by 13 points and in Westwood by 18. But, this year’s Oregon State team is better than last year’s team.

Last year, Wayne Tinkle did not have his best player available for either game. This year, his son Tres Tinkle has recovered from the wrist injury that forced him to miss most of last season and he’s been on fire since getting back on the floor.

The younger Tinkle is the only player in the Pac-12 to score in double figures every single game this season and he is averaging 18.2 ppg. He also leads the team in both rebounds and assists with 7.4 rpg and 3.5 apg.

Oregon State’s other leader is junior guard Stephen Thompson, Jr. who is averaging 16.5 ppg and is tied with Tinkle for the team lead in assists. In last year’s game in Corvallis, Thompson scored 25 points against UCLA and he also led the Beavers at Pauley with 18.

So, the Bruins will need to stop Tinkle down low and Thompson up top.

Another returning starter from last year is junior forward Drew Eubanks. Eubanks is third in points per game and second in rebounding. He’s the third biggest threat on the team this year with the return of Tinkle, but, last year, he was second in scoring against UCLA behind Thompson in both games and he had 9 rebounds at home and 7 as Pauley.

The Beavers have two newcomers in the starting lineup this year. The first is freshman guard Ethan Thompson, the brother of the Beavers’ other starting guard and the younger son of one of the Beavers’ assistant coaches. So far this year, Ethan is averaging 9.3 ppg.

The other Oregon State newcomer is graduate transfer Seth Berger. Berger played four season at UMass before deciding to transfer to OSU last Spring. Berger has had the smallest impact of Oregon State’s starting five. He’s currently averaging just 3.3 ppg and 2.7 rpg.

Look for the Beavers to come out hungry tonight as they are coming off a road trip to Arizona which saw them drop games to both the Wildcats and the Sun Devils.

Listen to the Game Here on BN!

This season, we are proud to, again, have today's audio feed for everyone who opts to use the Tune In player embedded below. For optimum results, start the audio feed then pause your DVR and sync them up together. There are times when I say that you shouldn’t bother with the audio feed because of the announcers. Tonight is NOT one of those times. Bruin hater Doug Gottlieb is the analyst for tonight’s game. So, leave your TV audio on at your own risk.

Join your fellow fans discussing today’s game below. This is your UCLA Bruins at Oregon State Beavers game thread.

Go Bruins!