The Barometer Online

Issue date: 2/5/09 Section: Sports

Media Credit: Jeff Wick Junior Roeland Schaftenaar runs the center point position in Oregon State's Princeton style offense. Schaftenaar and the Beavers host Arizona tonight.

The Oregon State Beavers men's basketball team will get their first chance at avenging a pair of early season losses as the Arizona Wildcats and the Arizona State Sun Devils come to Corvallis this weekend to kick off the second half of the Pac-10 season.

The Beavers got smoked by the Sun Devils earlier this year in Tempe by a score of 69-38. Oregon State stayed with the Wildcats in a close game until it got away from them after head coach Craig Robinson was ejected, losing in Tucson 64-47.

If any other team is as hot as the Beavers are right now, it's without a doubt the Arizona Wildcats. They'll be rolling into Legendary Gill Coliseum Thursday night with a three-game winning streak, and fresh off a sweep of Washington and Washington State last weekend.

"They've got two or three bona fide big-time players," Robinson said. "A couple of them have been mentioned as potential pros and they're playing well."

The potential pros on the Wildcats are their two scoring leaders, Jordan Hill, with 18.2 points per game, and Chase Budinger, with 17.4 points per game. Budinger especially has been a thorn in the Beavers side in his career, and that continued into 2009 as he torched the Beavers for 24 points and six rebounds in the first meeting between the two teams.

Something that will be different this time around is that Oregon State will more than likely be playing its suffocating 1-3-1 defense, the defense that's been the catalyst behind the recent four-game winning streak and a defense that the Wildcats will be seeing for the first time. Oregon State played a different defense in Tucson when the teams met earlier this year.

"When I watched the tape recently the best thing about it was that we're a completely different team from back then." Coach Robinson said. "But they're also a better team than they were back then too, so we just have to execute better."

Execution is something that the Beavers are improving upon every week, and this time they're not going up against Arizona with the hangover of their first win still looming. Oregon State is now attempting to go on their longest winning streak of the season, and with the low scoring they've held their opponents to, they continue to come more into their own identity.

Continued...

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