UC Irvine’s Offense Takes a Vacation

The team that seemed to be coming of age Thursday wasn’t that reclamation project from UC Irvine.

Oregon State, picked to finish near the bottom of the Pac-10, won its fourth consecutive game with a 65-43 victory over the Anteaters in front of 1,182 fans at the Bren Center.

True, this was the fourth tomato can the Beavers have handled, following easy victories over Cal State Northridge, UC San Diego and Cal State Sacramento. Still, it ended a 21-game road losing streak and left Oregon State 4-0 for the first time since 1986-87.

“Our guys were real hungry to get a win on the road,” Beaver Coach Eddie Payne said. “They wanted that streak to end. They felt like this was a step in the right direction.”

Irvine players, on the other hand, felt like they were in reverse.

“This is a step backward,” sophomore forward Adam Stetson said. “We were lackadaisical from the beginning. They turned up the intensity and we stayed at the same level.”

Like the Anteaters, Oregon State is relying on young players this season. The Beavers, who were 7-20 last season, used three sophomores and two freshmen for at least 18 minutes.

Unlike the Anteaters, Oregon State got solid play from them all.

“Our inexperience and inability to run the offense cost us,” Coach Pat Douglass said. “Our offensive output has been a consistent thing.”

Or the lack of output, actually.

Irvine shot 34% from the field and had only one field goal in the last eight minutes. Oregon State was getting strong play inside and out. And that was just from Corey Benjamin.

Benjamin, a sophomore from Fontana High School, scored 21 points on a variety of shots, from flying dunks to smooth jump shots. He managed to blunt Irvine’s quasi-rally in the second half.

The Anteaters (1-4), who trailed, 34-19, at halftime, cut the Beavers’ lead to 46-34 with 10 minutes left. Benjamin scored nine points down the stretch on three dunks and a three-pointer. He had two dunks off alley-oop passes from freshman Deaundra Tanner (12 points, nine assists) and then closed with a tomahawk after a steal.

“Benjamin is a good player,” Douglass said.

Great, apparently, would have been if Benjamin had thrown the alley-oop passes himself, then dunked. But Douglass has more to worry about than Benjamin.

What offense the Anteaters were generating vanished in the last eight minutes. Andrew Carlson scored on a layup with five seconds left, ending a run of turnovers and missed shots, with few free throws thrown in.

“We work on our offense in practice, then when we get some pressure and we start to vary from it,” Stetson said. “We need to keep doing what the coaches tell us to do.”

Ben Jones scored 17 points, making six of 11 shots, and Stetson scored 15.

“We’re young and we are asking some guys to play a lot of minutes,” Douglass said. “We get their lead down to 12, then we come up empty on our next three or four possessions.

“We have to get some inside play. We’ve been too much a perimeter team.”

Oregon State, which had nine players play at least 14 minutes, had no such problems. The Beavers shot 50% from the field and made 10 of 17 three-pointers. Tanner, who had taken only five three pointers in the previous three games, was four of six on threes.

The Beavers pressure defense didn’t overwhelm the Anteaters, but they did force 19 turnovers. They scored 12 points off turnovers.

“It wasn’t a step forward for us,” Douglass said. “It wasn’t a step backward.”