An Elite Eight participant last season, Oregon State will bring a 10-game losing streak into McKale Center on Thursday as well as possession of last place.
With only seven scholarship players available, the Beavers lost a makeup game at home Tuesday against Colorado, 90-64. OSU cut the Buffs' 12-point halftime lead to just four but wound up being blown out anyway to drop to 3-20 overall and 1-12 in Pac-12 games.
OSU has not won a game in calendar 2022 and its only Pac-12 win so far has come at home against 11th-place Utah.
"I'm not an excuse maker, but we obviously got fatigued, mentally and physically," OSU coach Wayne Tinkle said on his postgame radio interview. "We stopped running offense. We stopped moving the ball. We got very, very stagnant and then we got frustrated because of that and then carried it over to the defensive end."
The Beavers shot 44.4% from the field but went just 3 for 19 from 3-point range and collected 13 fewer points at the line than Colorado. OSU made 5 of 7 free throws while CU was 18 for 22.
Oregon State was missing Dexter Akanno (hip), Isaiah Johnson (concussion), Xzavier Malone-Key (back) and Tre Williams (knee) while guard Gianni Hunt has left the team for the rest of the season.
According to the Corvallis Gazette-Times, Tinkle was hopeful afterward that Johnson or Williams might be available for part if not all of the Beavers' trip to UA and ASU this week.
Getting to play OSU on short rest Thursday is a rare advantage for the Wildcats in the Pac-12's rescheduling efforts. Arizona already had to play at UCLA at the tail end of a three-game road swing through California, losing by 16 points, and had to play at ASU just before their trip through Washington last week.
And the Wildcats won't have an advantage on March 1 when they play a makeup game at USC. The Wildcats will have to play that one three days after completing the mountain swing -- though they will return home for two nights after facing Colorado on Feb. 26 -- and the game is now set for 9 p.m. on March 1.
That means UA won't return home until about 2 a.m. on Wednesday morning, making for short prep to host Stanford on March 3 (and possibly impacting academics also). USC, meanwhile, won't have to play again until going across town to UCLA on March 5.
While the UA-USC game time was set Tuesday, it has yet to be determined whether it will be placed on ESPN or ESPN2.
