After playing against the Samford Bulldogs earlier this week, the Oregon State Men’s Basketball team was eager to take on the Princeton Tigers inside Gill Coliseum, searching for their first win in the past three games.

What resulted to be a nail biting game, the Beavers lost their third game in a row with a score of 81-80.

The starting lineup for OSU included two senior forwards in Warith Alatishe Rodrigue Andela, along with three junior guards in Jarod Lucas, Dexter Akanno, and Dashawn Davis. This was notable due to the fact that starter and senior forward Maurice Calloo did not dress for the mid afternoon game due to a knee injury suffered in practice earlier in the week.

His replacement, Davis, was a key player in Sunday’s game and definitely changed things up for the Beavers on the defensive side of the court, constantly pressuring the Princeton Tigers into tough situations bringing the ball up the court and in the half court scenario.

“He keeps the ball in front. He causes havoc,” Head Oregon State basketball coach Wayne Tinkle said about the junior guard. “He gets deflections, he puts pressure on the other team’s point guard without hurting your defense. He’s only going to get better as he continues learning our [defense]”.

Princeton started the game off strong with a three point jumper made by senior forward Drew Friberg, who finished the game with a strong 17 points on 4-12 shooting. Along with Friberg, senior guard Jaelin Llewellyn played a consistent role as the teams point guard, finishing the game with 14 points and senior guard and sharp-shooter Ethan Wright added 24 points of his own contributing on six made three-pointers.

The Beavers fought back the rest of the first period. Some of the most notable plays by the Beavers begin with dunks made by junior forward Ahmad Rand, a second chance driving layup, a 3-point jumper, and free throws courtesy of junior guard Tre’ Williams, Akanno coming in with a driving layup, Davis with a pullup jumper, free throw, and a driving layup, a three-pointer jumper by freshman forward Glenn Taylor Jr.

Among the chaos of the game, the Beavers ended the first half down by two points with a score of 41-39 and looked to find their groove offensively entering the second half.

It was clear to all present at the game that the next 20 minutes of this basketball game were going to be a nail biter as the fans grew loud and restless.

With consistent efforts made the rest of the game by players Oregon State junior guard Gianni Hunt, Oregon State sophomore forward Isaiah Johnson, Taylor Jr., Williams, Davis, and Lucas, who hit a three point jumper with 0.5 seconds left on the clock in the second half, the Beavers came up short by one point for the second game in a row.

The short-handed beavers fought hard in the matchup against Princeton up until the final buzzer, getting contribution from all around the roster. Davis led the team in scoring with 16 points, stepping in for the injured Calloo for his first official start with the Oregon State team. Lucas also added 13 points of his own, connecting on three out of his five three-point shots.  Rand also added six of the most exciting points through the game, all of them coming from high flying dunks and alley-oops from his teammates.

While the outcome is not what the players, coaches, and Beaver Nation were hoping for, the optimism and improvement this game brought to the table is something that everyone should take note of, as said Coach Tinkle, “Our guys didn’t quit and we showed a lot more discipline, character and togetherness than we’ve shown. I’m tired of losing, I don’t believe in moral victories but I know this, our team took a step forward today”.

Next up, the Men’s Basketball team takes on Wake Forest in North Carolina at the Lawrence Joel Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum on Nov. 26 at 6:30 p.m. The Beavers will look to break their four game losing streak.