UCLA
Oregon St
No. 7 Bruins Upset by Oregon State
June 21, 1999 | Men's Basketball
January 8, 1999
CORVALLIS, Ore. - For the first time in more than a month, the UCLA Bruins played a game away from Pauley Pavilion. And they looked like they were anxious to get back home.
UCLA rushed its shots, committed silly fouls and got outhustled by Oregon State, which used timely shooting and a stifling zone defense to upset the No. 7 Bruins 65-63 on Thursday night.
"This was our first true test as far as going on the road in the conference, and we obviously failed," UCLA coach Steve Lavin said.
The Bruins had won eight straight and were coming off a 6-0 homestand in which they defeated No. 8 Arizona 82-75 and edged Arizona State 88-85.
But constant double- and triple-teaming by the Beavers clearly agitated the Bruins, who shot a season-low 28 percent from the field and missed 23 of 27 shots from 3-point range.
"We forced them to shoot the basketball from the perimeter, and we didn't give them a lot of transition, if at all," Oregon State coach Eddie Payne said. "We're fortunate we caught these guys on their first experience on the road."
Deaundra Tanner scored 19 points and Josh Steinthal added 18 for Oregon State (7-5, 1-2) to snap the Beavers' 11-game losing streak to the Bruins (10-3, 2-1). Ramunas Petraitis added 10 points and nine rebounds.
Baron Davis and Earl Watson each had 15 points for UCLA, and JaRon Rush added eight points and 12 rebounds. But the trio combined to make just 14 of 51 shots from the field and one of 18 from 3-point range.
"Credit them - they made us take lots of 3s, which we've been hitting, but tonight we couldn't do it," Davis said.
Even with their poor play, the Bruins almost managed to steal a victory with a wild comeback in the final three minutes.
Tanner's 3-pointer put the Beavers ahead 60-51 with 2:41 remaining, but the Bruins came back with two free throws by Ray Young and a three-point play by Davis to make it 61-56 with just under two minutes left.
A layup by UCLA's Young made it 62-58 with 1:26 remaining, but the Beavers made two free throws to go ahead 64-58.
After a miss by UCLA, Davis stole an Oregon State pass and fed the ball to Brandon Loyd, who hit a 3-pointer to cut it to 64-61 with 37 seconds left.
Oregon State's Clifton Jones missed two free throws, but then redeemed himself by scrambling to grab an errant pass by Davis. A tie-up gave UCLA the ball on the alternating possession, but Davis turned it over again.
Adam Masten came up with the ball, was fouled and made one of two free throws for a 65-61 lead with 14.4 seconds left.
Rush hit a layup as time ran out, and Oregon State fans ran onto the court to celebrate the Beavers' first win over the Bruins since Jan. 16, 1993.
"I think we got some people's attention," Payne said. "We're still going to be underdogs, but we're going to fight you."
The Beavers were picked to finish last in the Pac-10 this season, but after a blowout loss to Stanford in the conference opener, they almost upset Cal before Thursday night's win.
Oregon State also snapped an 11-game losing streak against ranked teams. The Beavers hadn't beaten a team ranked this high since defeating No. 2 Arizona in 1989.
UCLA's previous worst shooting performance was 33 percent in a loss to Maryland on Nov. 27.
"We shot the ball too quickly," Lavin said. "We got frustrated, and that affected us in terms of fouls and reaching. We showed a lack of defensive discipline and offensive discipline, and when you do that on the road in college basketball, you're going to get beat."
The Bruins had 27 offensive rebounds to Oregon State's six, but their poor shooting negated the size and quickness advantage.
By LANDON HALL
Associated Press Writer
