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CBI Semifinals: Late run propels Oregon State past Stanford, into CBI championship round

When two conference foes lock horns for a fourth time in a season, secrets are few and far between. Mysteries, however, can exist even when secrets are absent, and after digging out yet another close win on their home court, the members of Oregon State's basketball team have to be wondering how they're still playing basketball in the final days of March.
 
A 9-1 run in the final two and a half minutes of overtime carried Coach Craig Robinson's Beavers to a 65-62 victory over Pac-10 rival Stanford. Wednesday night's heartstopping triumph in Gill Coliseum sends Oregon State to the best-of-three CBI Championship Series, which begins next Monday in Corvallis against UTEP. The Miners, who knocked off Richmond in Wednesday's other CBI semifinal, will host Game 2 of the series next Wednesday in El Paso. Game 3, if necessary, will also be played in El Paso on Friday, April 3.
 
When this CBI Tournament, the second annual edition of the event, began on March 17, Oregon State carried a 13-17 record. While the NIT and the first-year CIT tournaments required a winning record from all prospective participants, the CBI did not. Moreover, the CBI--without a formalized set of bracketing, seeding, or site-determining structures--gave home games to the schools that were willing to pay $60,000 per game. Oregon State, unlike other schools, was willing to cough up the dough, so the Beavers--despite a record that merited a bottom-rung seed in the tournament--hosted each of the first three games in the event. Had they traveled to Houston for March 18's first-round game, they probably would have lost. The same likelihood applies to their March 23 win over Vermont.
 
None of this matters, however, because those scenarios represent nothing more than speculation. Given the favorable hand they were dealt, the Beavers have made the most of their opportunity, and now, a program that failed to win a single conference game in 2008 will be playing at least one game in April of 2009. Moreover, Oregon State can now claim an eighth conference victory and a third triumph over the gutted group from Stanford.

As mentioned above, this was the fourth encounter between these two teams, a scenario that can only emerge in a national postseason tournament. One of the more noted examples of a four-game season series in college basketball emerged when Big East behemoths St. John's and Georgetown clashed on four separate occasions in the 1984-'85 campaign. The two teams split home games before Georgetown won subsequent encounters in the Big East Tournament and, later, in the Final Four. Oregon State swept the two-game regular season series with Stanford before the Cardinal gained revenge at the Pac-10 Tournament in Los Angeles. Wednesday in Corvallis, the two teams did play a fourth game in a final four... just not the Final Four that merits capital letters and is played in a dome before a crowd of at least 40,000.
 
No, only 4,759 (a really good crowd under the circumstances, given that Oregon State's campus is on spring break) showed up for this war, but oh, what a battle it turned out to be. Two clubs cared about winning in an event that's gone unnoticed by many other college hoops fans. Stanford and OSU spilled their guts on the hardwood, trading runs and dry spells in an yo-yo affair that toyed with the emotions of the participants.
 
With 2:30 left in regulation time, it was the Beavers who held a 51-45 lead and appeared ticketed for the title round. However, the Cardinal responded with a 9-3 run capped by a putback basket from Lawrence Hill that tied the game at the buzzer. Suddenly, all the momentum that had cuddled up in the home team's corner swung to the visitors from the San Francisco Bay.
 
In the first half of the overtime period, Stanford played like a team that had Big Mo on its side. The Cardinal jumped the Beavers and raced to a 61-56 advantage over an OSU team that sagged and slumped. Just moments after blowing a multi-possession lead in the final 2:30 of regulation, a reeling Oregon State outfit needed to mount a comeback in two and a half additional minutes.
 
Somehow, someway, they did.

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OSU big man Roeland Schaftenaar, who was beaten by Hill for the basket that sent this game into overtime, picked himself off the canvas and hit a 3-pointer, followed by a putback basket of his own, to tie the game at 61-all. When Beaver guard Josh Tarver sliced through Stanford's defense for a layup, the team coached by President Obama's brother-in-law produced change that the people of Corvallis could believe in. When a desperation heave by Hill missed the mark at the buzzer, Craig Robinson had directed his overachieving roster to the CBI's ultimate showdown. A program that so urgently needed a lift after the hellhole of 2008 will now get to play even more basketball, a terrific way to develop for 2010.
 
Oregon State is hardly flexing its muscles. The Beavers have won three CBI home games by a grand total of eight points against modest competition when compared to the NIT or NCAA Tournament fields. Wins, however, are wins, and by pulling three fistfights out of the fire, an admirably gutsy group can now chase a championship against the pride of El Paso.
 
Mysteries abound even when secrets don't. Oregon State knew how to beat Stanford once again, but don't ask Craig Robinson how his team's season is still alive. The coach known for his family connections more than his professional skills would not be able to give you a legitimate answer.
 
Thankfully, he doesn't have to.

By Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Staff Writer