CORVALLIS — It isn’t often that the Oregon State men’s basketball team has struggled on its home floor this season.
The Beavers entered the week 13-1 at Gill Coliseum in 2024-25 with an average margin of victory of 18.8 points per game — 27th best in the nation.
On Thursday, though, OSU produced some uncharacteristically sloppy first-half play and was forced to dig its way out of an early hole. Thanks to key contributions from a pair of unsung heroes, the Beavers stayed in contention until their star players found their shooting strokes and took over the game.
Oregon State topped Washington State, 82-74, at Gill to secure a much-needed bounce-back win. In the process, the Beavers improved to 17-7 on the year and 7-4 in West Coast Conference play to set the stage for a big Saturday matchup with first-place Saint Mary’s, which suffered its first league loss of the year Thursday.
“Gutty win,” Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle said. “Obviously, turnovers and our defense were the two things that were down. We just seemed to be in a little bit of a fog. I don’t know if it was the time off or not, but we made big plays when we had to.”
Michael Rataj led the Beavers with 21 points on 7-of-13 shooting and a team-high eight rebounds. Parsa Fallah added 17 points and Nate Kingz chipped in 15.
At times this year, Oregon State has struggled for consistent scoring outside of its starting five. Against the Cougars, though, Josiah Lake II (eight points in 22 minutes) and Isaiah Sy (nine points in 19 minutes) provided a pivotal first-half spark while the Beavers were still finding their footing.
“We just haven’t gotten much of a punch,” Tinkle said of Oregon State’s bench scoring this season. “If you’ve got one or two of your starters not in the groove offensively, you’ve got to get something off the bench. We haven’t had that the last few games. (Lake) has had a little different bounce in his step; we’ve talked about confidence with him, especially away from Gill. The guy is a stud. There’s a reason he’s here, and we told him that. It was great to see that he just had a little more giddy-up in him and that confidence.”
It wasn’t always pretty on Thursday, though. The Beavers committed 13 turnovers to the Cougars’ five. A few of those miscues led to OSU trailing 9-1 just 2:20 into the game.
But Tinkle’s squad also dominated on the boards, winning the rebound battle 36-19.
In a game that was physical from the get-go, Oregon State got Washington State in foul trouble early and used that to its advantage late in the evening. The Beavers went 20 for 25 from the free-throw stripe in the second half.
It didn’t hurt that their star junior, Rataj, came to life with a few big-time buckets in key second-half moments.
His and-one on an end-of-the-shot-clock jumper gave OSU a 71-64 lead with 7:42 left. Then, a turnaround fadeaway with 1:59 to go made it 78-74 and helped the Beavers hold the Cougars at arm’s length.
Rataj scored 16 of his 21 points in the second half.
“Mike is a great leader,” Lake said of Rataj. “He’s always bringing everybody else up. So, I think when we give him the ball, we know he has all the confidence to shoot a big shot. He doesn’t just give confidence to the players, he gives confidence to the coaches as well. He does a great job of staying in the moment.”
With 40 seconds remaining, with Oregon State leading 78-74, Washington State’s Isaiah Watts missed a three at the top of the key, and the Beavers proceeded to close out the game at the free-throw line.
Oregon State will now set its sights on Saturday’s 7 p.m. home clash with Saint Mary’s after the Gaels (20-4, 19-1) lost a 65-64 shootout to San Francisco on Thursday.
“(The Gaels) are a very mature team — very mature and disciplined team,” Tinkle said of coach Randy Bennett’s squad. “They’ve got one of the better coaches in the United States. They’ll have them raring to go.”
This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Oregon State men’s basketball gets ‘gutsy’ win over Washington State
