Oregon State women’s basketball head coach Scott Rueck doesn’t like to convey excess emotion at the end of games.
But following the Beavers’ upset victory over Oregon in the Civil War on Saturday, how couldn’t he?
Earlysia Marchbanks clutched the ball in her hands. The buzzer sounded, the red lights flashed, and the Oregon State Beavers, now 9-16 overall (2-12 Pacific-10 Conference) rushed to center court in a show of joy. They had emerged from a 20-point halftime deficit to win, 61-59, and energize 3,130 fans, the majority of them Beaver believers.
“To regroup at halftime and come out and just decide to play — I thought we came out and lost composure (in the first half),” Rueck said. “In the second half, we played with composure. It was really fun to see.”
Rueck has won 297 games (including a Division III national championship game) in his head coaching career and lost 104. As a lifelong Oregon State fan, beating the Ducks for his team’s first home conference victory this season felt particularly sweet.
“It’s up there. I gotta be honest,” Rueck said. “Our second conference win — it’s right up there with conference championships in my book.”
Oregon State was the better team early on, jumping out to a 14-9 lead on El Sara Greer’s layup with 9:22 remaining in the first half.
From there, seemingly nothing went in: two-pointers, three-pointers, even free throws. The Beavers made just one of 13 three-pointers and three of 10 free throws in the first 20 minutes, shooting 20.7 percent from the field overall.
Down 36-16 and out of the game in every facet, there was no hanging of heads in the Beavers’ locker room.
“Coach said, ‘Go out there and put the ball in the hoop and rebound their misses, then we’re going to win,’” said Marchbanks, who finished the game with 17 points, seven rebounds and six steals in 34 minutes. “Oregon is not a defensive team, and Coach said they don’t rebound.”
Marchbanks found the hoop first, with a layup to open the second half. Alexis Bostick followed that with four of her eight points, third-most amongst Beavers. When Oregon forward Victoria Kenyon hit a pair of free throws for the first Duck points of the half, the lead was trimmed to 38-29.
“Just coming out of halftime, when the first shot fell and the second shot fell, we were like, ‘Ooooh … this is really working,” Marchbanks said.
Oregon was on the verge of total collapse.
Foul trouble was the first sign. The Ducks picked up seven team fouls with 11:07 remaining in the second half, giving Oregon State ample opportunities.
“Every time we were going we would shoot two free throws, so Coach just told us, ‘Be aggressive, be aggressive,’” Marchbanks said. “We started thinking that we could win this game.”
Oregon point guard Ariel Thomas picked up her fourth foul with 16 minutes remaining, leaving guard/forward Tatianna Thomas to run the point. Thomas had two turnovers and no assists and struggled to keep the offensive flow in the half-court.
“She’s not as strong as the other two point guards, playing out of position,” Marchbanks said. “It made it easier for us to pick her alive.”
The defense began to suffer: Oregon State was breaking the Ducks’ press seemingly at will, leaving two-on-one situations and easy layups.
“They stopped guarding me for some reason,” Greer said. “They just passed the ball into me and I passed it right back. We were doing too much reversing (in the first half) in breaking the press so we didn’t have too much time to score.”
Finally, the interior of the Oregon zone defense was weakened. Greer, who finished with 21 points and 13 rebounds (eight offensive) drew two and-one fouls late in the second half, powering through Nicole Canepa and Deanna Weaver. Greer converted the first opportunity but missed the second.
With one possession and 7.9 seconds to cinch up the game, Oregon could not convert. The comeback was complete. The Ducks had fallen.
“Twenty is long minutes,” Marchbanks said. “You’ve got a lot of time to score.”
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