Beavers Take Down Cal

Oregon State made a late push and defeated Cal 69-65 in Berkley. This is probably a bigger victory than the slump busting victory over USC earlier in the month.

This has been a busy week for Coach Robinson as he flew to Washington DC for his brother-in-law's inauguration as President of the United States, slept in the Lincoln Bedroom in the White House, and then met back up with the team in California. Despite this, the Beavers shook off a rough first half and closed it out in the second half.

I caught the last 2 minutes of the game on the radio after my son went to bed. What came through was that each time the Beavers had the ball during those 2 minutes, they went out and had good possessions that resulted not only in points, but resulted in good things happening. First Roeland Schaftnaar got an open look at a 3 pointer. Then Omari Johnson drew a foul and made 1 of 2 foul shots. And then Calvin Haynes got a layup to seal the deal. Each possession never seemed out of sorts, the Beavers during those last 2 minutes knew what they needed to do and how they were going to do it. Calvin Haynes said this about the game:

"Emotions were high and I think we had a lot at stake and we came out gunning," Haynes said. "We wanted to get it down to a close game and what are we going to do? Are we going to break down or keep fighting? It comes down to what we do in practice. This isn't anything new."

Based on the first 16 games I think that what will separate Craig Robinson's tenure at Oregon State from the tenure of Jay John (who, incidentally was on the Cal sideline as an Assistant Coach) is this preparation. There were many times in end game scenarios where the Beavers just didn't seem to have their stuff together. This doesn't seem to be the case under the First Brother-in-law.



(Hat Tip on the photo to Building the Dam)