From: allen@tessi.com (Allen Warren)
Subject: Far West Tourney (long)  (was: Re: Ohio State - Far West Tournament)
Organization: Test Systems Strategies, Inc., Beaverton, Oregon
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 19:32:49 GMT

tammy@ncsu.edu (Tammy NMI Abernethy) writes:

>Ohio State won the game by about 10 points, I forget the score.

Final Score: Ohio State - 85, Oregon State - 77.
	     University of Oregon - 76, BYU - 70.


Article by Ken Wheeler of the Portland 'Oregonian' newspaper staff:


		Ohio State scoffed at Oregon State's supposed Far
	West Classic magic and treated this season's crop of Beavers
	with even less respect Monday night, ripping to an 85-77 victory
	before a crowd of 10,813 in Memorial Coliseum.
		It wasn't even a contest until the final couple minutes,
	when the rallying Beavers closed within four.  That was it -- too
	little, too late for an Oregon State team that seemed to lack a 
	sense of diretion, let alone a nose for the ball, for a good
	part of the evening.
		The loss ended a 12-game sinning string in the classic
	for the Beavers, who had won the last four tournament championships
	and who had won 19 of the past 37 titles.
		Oregon State will play Brigham Young, a 76-70 loser to
	Oregon, at 7 p.m. Tuesday for third place in the tournament, which is
	sponsored by Thriftway Stores.
		Ohio State (5-2), which broke a two-game losing string with
	this victory, earned the win in the first half.  The Buckeyes led by
	as many as 12 points in the half, then kicked that up to a lead as
	great as 18 points with 9:37 to play in the game.  Ohio State's lead
	still was 18 points at 74-56 with 8:13 to play before the Beavers
	(2-5), who have now lost four in a row, began to rally.
		The Beavers shot themselves into an early hold.  They
	managed to shoot only 31 percent from the field in the first half
	while the Buckeyes, the defending Big Ten Conference champions, shot
	56.7 percent.
		That was bad enough.  Rebounding made it worse.  The Buckeyes
	outrebounded the Beavers 27-14 in the decisive first half.
		Jamie Skelton, a 6-foot-2 junior guard, led the Buckeyes and
	the game with 29 points, including 5 of 7 3-pointers as the Beavers
	just never convinced themselves that he had to be given more than a
	cursory look if he was outside.
		After trailing by 18 with 8:13 on the clock, Oregon State
	rallied to get within four points at 79-75 with 1:56 to play.
		And the Beavers had a chance to get even closer.  Ohio State
	turned the ball over on its next possession, but the Beavers could
	not capitalize.
		They turned the ball over with 1:43 to go when Chad Scott
	made an errant pass.
		"It seemed that when Oregon State made some runs, we got
	timely baskets from Alex (Davis) and Jamie (Skelton)," Ohio State
	coach Randy Ayers said.  "We rebounded well.  That is one area I
	was real concerned with coming into the tournament."
		The Buckeyes got a greak there when Oregon State center
	Scott Haskin couldn't get near a rebound in the first half.  He
	finished with zero for the half, and that had a lot to do with
	Ohio State's edge, both on the boards and on the scoreboard.
		"I thought we were very tentative the last 7-8 minutes,"
	Ayers said of the finish when Oregon State finally managed to get
	close.
		"I thought they (the Beavers) picked up their defense.  WE
	had two freshmen point guards on the floor much of that time."
		When Oregon State got within four near the finish, Ayers
	said he called a timeout because, "I wanted to see some fire in their
	eyes.  Finally, Alex and Jamie picked it up a little bit, and 
	Lawrence (Funderburke) got excited.  And Anderson hit some big
	free throws."
		Once the Beavers got within four, they were forced to foul
	and send the Buckeyes to the line, hoping they would miss.
		They didn't, at least not often enough.
		Ohio State, which didn't get a field goal in the final
	five minutes, hit six free throws in the final 1:30 to hold the
	Beavers off.
		"I'm going to take responsibility for this loss," Oregon
	State's Haskin said.
		"I didn't step up as a leader the way that I should.  I
	let my teammates down.  I missed a lot of easy shots and dropped some
	rebounds.  I just can't do that in key situations.  It's never
	going to happen again."
		Haskin finished with an Oregon State high of 17 points,
	but the first half was a disasater for the man the Beavers have to
	have marching out in front.
		"Our performance in the first part of the game was very
	slipshod," Oregon State coach Jim Anderson said.
		"Our shooting was poor; our defense was marginal."
		The game, the OSU coach said, was really not all that
	different from the earlier losses in this four-game string.
		"We basically played the same way we've been playing,"
	he said.  "We have to get over the edge.  Hopefully, the last 8-10
	minutes that we played in this game proved to Oregon State players
	that if you get after it, this can be a solid team."
		What the Beavers have to get after now is third place.
		Ohio State saw to it that they wouldn't be around for
	another championship go.



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