Beavs MBB Falter, Miss Out on History with Loss to San Francisco
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Oregon State lost 74-72 to San Francisco in heartbreaking fashion Wednesday night in Corvallis. Parsa Fallah's last second basket that would have sent the game into overtime was waived off with the ball leaving his hands with 0's on the clock.
With the loss, the Beavs fell to 10-7 in WCC play and 20-10 overall. The loss also meant that Oregon State will not finish the season with the program's best-ever home win total.
8:00 p.m. tipoffs in Corvallis usually mean wild things are ahead, Wednesday night was no exception as the Beavers found themselves ahead 31-19 with 3:24 left in the first half, they went into the break trailing 33-31 after the Dons put together a 14-0 run to erase a 12-point deficit to close out the first half.
Big man Parsa Fallah contributed 10 in the first half but the Beavs shot 3-12 from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes that allowed the Dons to claw back. The 14-0 run San Francisco put together to end the half with the lead ballooned to a 21-0 run in the early goings of the second half.
It was nearly a 9-minute scoring drought in the middle of the game for Oregon State before Fallah ended the drought with a layup to bring Oregon State within 7. The Beavs clawed back to take the lead 53-51 with a pair of Josiah Lake free throws with 7:39 left in regulation. The final 6 minutes were a dogfight with the lead swinging back and forth before Liutauras Lelevicius converted on a 4 -point play to hand the Beavs a 61-59 lead with 4:28 remaining.
USF freshman Veniamin Abosi hit a corner three with with 4 seconds left on the clock to give USF a 74-72 lead before Fallahs putback attempt at the other end left his hands with the buzzer already blaring. Fallah finished the WCC contest with 24 points and tacked on 5 rebounds. Michael Rataj finished below his average with 11 points and 7 boards.
Marcus Williams led the Dons in scoring with 21 points while Malik Thomas finished on 14 points and Tyrone Riley pitched in with 12.
Wayne Tinkle in his postgame press conference called the game "heartbreaking" while also taking shots at some of the officiating miscues on the court, adding that he "doesn't know what a foul is anymore".
Tinkle was also furious about the amount of time on the clock after the Abosi corner three, saying he was on the court calling timeout with 6 seconds left. Tinkle added that those two seconds "in a game like this is the difference between a loss and going to overtime".
Oregon State will play their regular season finale on the road Saturday in Moraga against St. Mary's.
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Kyle is a 2019 graduate of Southern Oregon University and currently does play-by-play for SOU football and men’s and women’s soccer. He hosts a daily sports show in southern Oregon on The Ace Sports Radio, 107.9 FM and 1300 AM. Kyle also does play-by-play for the Rogue Valley Royals hockey team and the North Medford High School Black Tornado for TableRockSports.net. Kyle lives in Ashland, Oregon with his wife and a Dalmatian named Penny.