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LAS VEGAS – Colorado had just finished cleaning the T-Mobile Arena floor with hopes from the state of Oregon when the horn sounded and Bill Walton wavered on the court.
He received the broadcast call at the other quarter-finals of the Pac-12 tournament.
Walton wore a backpack on his shoulders. He had two bottles of Hydroflask style water. He was wearing a jacket, a satchel, a pen, a notebook and a giant package. In addition, he had an extra chair, which he stacked on that of his post, which gave an extra height of six inches to the Hall of Fame by six feet 11 inches when he was sitting.
Walton had so much equipment for climbing that he looked like he needed a sherpa.
What I'm saying is that Walton arrived prepared.
That's more than we can say about the state of Oregon on Thursday.
The Beavers were beaten 73-58 by Colorado, becoming the first of four seeded eliminated. Season ended. The door of the NCAA tournament is closed. NIT too. And now, the university will have to decide if it will go down, pay a $ 50,000 registration fee, and accept an invitation to the university basketball invitational tournament.
My vote: no
Not that they ask me.
But Oregon State has just finished the best regular conference season since 1990. He was fourth and had a great time. But I'd like to see the beavers announce that the men's basketball program has evolved to the point of having to pay for its own freight at a glorious post-season tournament that will not improve your brand.
Indiana refused to play CBI a few years ago. His sports director announced, "We are Indiana. We do not play in the IWC. Bradley, who had a season of 20 wins last year, declined his invitation. Oregon State should do the same after the invitations to the NIT have been sent and the IWC comes to call.
It's not Craig Robinson, Oregon State coach.
It's a Wayne Tinkle team.
Whoever will have to live with this painful lesson delivered by Colorado and stay with for the rest of this month and the off season. Because if OSU is playing something that looks like a decent first half, they're still alive in Vegas instead of going to the airport. And since OSU recently cut its swim program and found itself in a stifling budget crisis, it's bad to watch 50 other players play a little more basketball.
Oregon State simply did not show up to face Colorado. Beavers lacked passion and seemed nervous to start the game. I was beaten to lose balls and rebounds in the first period. And when you come to a conference that was a messy mess last month, playing an absurdly bad game sends you home.
Colorado coach Tad Boyle said that not being allowed a pass, and struggling to win the first round win against Cal, ended up giving the advantage. The Buffs had 23 turnovers, but they won badly.
"We all want to say goodbye because we only want to win three games instead of four," he said. "But there is an advantage for the teams that play that first night that many people do not recognize or do not realize, and it was an advantage for us, I think, to sort of eliminate our sadness yesterday. And today, our guys were ready to play.
Washington State was catastrophic in the same court on Wednesday night. The performance helped to get Ernie Kent fired. The Cougars recorded the worst performance in the history of the Pac-12 tournament after a loss to Oregon.
Then the beavers went out and tried to make everyone forget.
The 18 points in the first half were a low of the season.
The game is well stopped there.
Because even though OSU made two innings of 10-0 in the second half and played much better, by the time the deficit was reduced to six points, they were gassed.
"They went out, really shot, became confident and we did not really do much to try to stop him," Tinkle said. "They gave them a lot of looks on the hoop. The easiest.
The game has turned into an adventure of choice of your own metaphor for OSU.
The Beavers were like one of those types charged with holding a "Ralphie", the mascot of the Buffaloes, while he was galloping on the football field. Except that they slipped, fell on their faces and were dragged 30 meters before they had the feeling of letting themselves go.
Or maybe they looked like a guy at the blackjack table, who kept drawing "12", "13" and "14" and needed someone to remove it before the reseller does not empty his pockets.
Or maybe they were only a college basketball team that showed up, played a dismal half basketball and was sent home in a body bag.
Whatever it is, the season should end here – no nonsense IWC. Tinkle said the beavers would wait to see what would happen with the NIT auctions and leave from there.
But the state of Oregon is better than that in many ways.
He must enter the off season and suffer the consequences.
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