Beavers begrudgingly complete 0-18 Pacific-10 season with loss to ASU

CORVALLIS — Oregon State did not go quietly into the Pacific-10 Conference record book.

But Arizona State withstood OSU’s passionate, desperate effort to defeat the Beavers 77-64 on Saturday to complete the Beavers’ perfect imperfect season. OSU’s (6-24, 0-18) 20th consecutive defeat matched the modern Pacific-10 Conference record, and left them as the first team in Pac-10 history to go 0-18 through the double round-robin.

The Beavers made a season-high 13 of a school-record 39 3-point attempts, got 10 steals and battled toe-to-toe for 38 minutes with an opponent fighting to secure an NCAA berth and a favorable Pac-10 tournament seed. They earned several standing ovations from the announced crowd of 4,111, which was more involved than any during one of the worst seasons in school history.

But it concluded just as every other game has since a Dec. 19 victory over Northern Colorado. And now the 1983 Arizona Wildcats and 1990, 2000 and 2002 Washington State Cougars, each of whom went 1-17 in Pac-10 play, are off the hook.

“We put ourselves in position to hang around by making (defensive) plays,” said OSU interim coach Kevin Mouton, who turned 42 years old on Saturday while falling to 0-12 since taking over for the dismissed Jay John on Jan. 20. “Our guys went hard, our game plan was solid. We battled until the end.”

Mouton said Saturday belied some contentions that the Beavers had quit and were simply mailing in the final month of the season.

“You don’t have young men in the locker room crying because they want to win so badly,” he said. “That’s not quitting. That’s passion for basketball. That’s the love for the game.”

Redshirt freshman guard Lathen Wallace had six 3-pointers and a career-high 22 points, senior forward Marcel Jones had 14 points and freshman guard Calvin Haynes had nine points, seven assists and five rebounds and then groused afterward that virtually every close call seemed to go in ASU’s favor.

“We feel (we’re) playing eight against five, inside of five against five,” Haynes said. “I know we have a bad record, but everything is obvious when you see somebody get fouled and when you see somebody (doesn’t) get fouled and (they’re) calling it for the other team because they’ve got a better record than us.

“I mean, we play just like they play; we bleed just like they bleed. And we feel like sometimes we get cheated unfairly on the court, and I can speak for the whole team about that.”

Haynes will probably hear from the Pac-10 office, after it finishes cleaning up the messes made by the officials during the final seconds of UCLA’s controversial Thursday and Saturday victories over the Bay Area teams. And his protestations won’t keep the Sun Devils (19-11, 9-9) out of the NCAA tournament, as Saturday’s win probably punched their NCAA dance card.

Eric Boateng and Jamelle McMillan established career highs with 12 points apiece and Ty Abbott scored a team-high 18 points, highlighted by a key 3-pointer with 4:45 remaining that finally broke the Beavers’ spirits.

College basketball analyst Seth Davis said ASU was a solid NCAA pick on ESPN’s College GameDay show on Saturday morning. But ASU’s credentials would have taken a major hit had it lost to the Beavers (RPI 256) so close to Selection Sunday.

“It wouldn’t have helped our cause, that’s for certain,” ASU coach Herb Sendek said. “Let’s cut to the chase: The pressure was on.

“You can pretend it wasn’t there but we had to win to keep our chances alive. We found a way. You knew Oregon State was going to come out and give it a great shot.”

The Beavers rallied from an early 9-2 deficit and had the crowd in a frenzy by pulling ahead 16-15. They trailed 38-30 at halftime following McMillan’s buzzer-beating driving layup, but battled back from a 10-point hole to pull within 55-53 with 11:49 remaining.

They were within 64-60 and had ASU staggering on the ropes before Abbott drained his crucial 3-pointer, a 25-footer from just in front of the ASU bench. It gave ASU a 67-60 edge and OSU’s goose was cooked a minute later on a James Harden slam for an insurmountable 69-60 lead.

“He’s done that all year, in tough situations and crunch times he’s stepped up and made big shots,” Sendek said of Abbott. “He’s shown an amazing coolness and constitution to do that.

“Even (if) he isn’t having a particularly good shooting night, he still has repeatedly shown the ability to make big shots, and that’s a real gift.”

The Beavers now face Arizona at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday night at Staples Center in Los Angeles in the Pac-10 tournament’s 7-10 elimination game.

“We need to bounce back. We have the tournament,” Wallace said. “Our coaches say we have three different seasons: pre-season, the Pac-10 season and the tournament. Hopefully, we can work real hard and win the tournament.

Added Haynes: “I don’t think we came into the season expecting this. Every time we lose, it hurts more and more. But we have the Pac-10 Tournament to turn things around.

“We always came into a game thinking that we will get this one. We thought we could beat anybody at any time. We are going to go into the Pac-10 and hold our heads high.”