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CBI First Round Recap - Oregon State vs Boston U

Boston University 96, Oregon State 78

Remember last year's magic carpet ride for the Oregon State Beavers?

Having trouble doing so? You're not alone.

It didn't take long for one year's improbable CBI Tournament championship to turn into a distinct downer for the Oregon State basketball program. Just 12 months after coach Craig Robinson's team won this 16-team event, it flamed out early in an embarrassing 18-point loss on its own home court. This beatdown suffered at the hands of the Boston University Terriers will create a bitter taste in the offseason for the kids from Corvallis, Ore. Wednesday night's brutally bad performance at Gill Coliseum removed any and all hope that this CBI experience could mirror last year's invigorating run.

Ah, it seems so long ago now, but the scores are still part of the public record. Last March, despite a sub-.500 record, the Beavers were offered a spot in the College Basketball Invitational. At 13-17, OSU had no business being in the NIT, but this newly-created postseason tournament offered a young ballclub a chance to grow on the court. The CBI became a teacher, friend and motivator for the OSU team, which seemed to bond and improve while it worked its way through the field.

In the first round of last year's CBI showcase, Oregon State survived Houston - yes, the same team that just back-doored into the 2010 NCAA Tournament - by a 49-45 count. In the second round, Oregon State worked overtime to beat Vermont in a 71-70 thriller. In the semifinals, OSU played even more bonus basketball and outlasted Stanford, 65-62, in one more overtime encounter. The Beavers, by that point in time, had already done far more than their fan base had ever expected. When one realizes that OSU went 0-18 in the 2008 Pac-10 season, last year's CBI run only becomes more amazing in nature.

Perhaps, the most surprising thing of all is that once Oregon State did reach the final, the Beavers - still 16-17 and under .500 - kept pushing forward. They weren't accustomed to winning, but one thing was for certain in the 2009 CBI Finals against the UTEP Miners: They weren't short on grit, either.

Oregon State dug out a 75-69 win at home in Game 1 of the best-of-three series, only to then lose by seven in Game 2 at El Paso. With the deciding third game also being staged in the West Texas town, the Beavers needed to find an extra measure of resolve in order to mop the floor with the Miners.

Sure enough, they found it. An 81-73 win enabled Robinson's roster to say - unlike almost every other team in college basketball - that it won its final game of the season. The hope in Corvallis was that the extended season and the piece of hardware - low-value though it may have been in the eyes of some observers - would create a new culture of winning on the Oregon State campus.

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Well, to bring the discussion back to the present moment, that hope died in this bloodbath against Boston U.

Oregon State fell behind 46-27 at halftime and never really recovered. The Terriers terrorized OSU in the paint (44 points to 26) and on the break (26 transition points to just six for the Beavers). Boston hit 57 percent of its shots and had five players who scored in double figures. Coach Patrick Chambers' BU crew flatly controlled all aspects of this game, putting to sleep not only the Gill Coliseum crowd, but any hopes of a CBI championship repeat for the beaten Beavers of Oregon State.

WHAT'S NEXT

Boston U. advances to the CBI quarterfinals. The Terriers' next opponent comes from the Ohio Valley Conference, as league runner-up Morehead State will travel to Boston for a game on Monday, March 22.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer