BFS Current Stories

Is Oregon State Basketball Ever Going to Recover to the Glory Days?

The Oregon State Men's basketball program lost again last night to Washington State 70-55 in Pullman. So what you say! It is just one game! Oh how wrong you are.

The Beavers are on their way to another losing record for the year. Since the 1989-1990 season (first year after Ralph Millers Retirement) the Beavers have had only 2 seasons with a winning record in the last 17 years. And one of those was the 89-90 season when Jimmy Anderson took over as head coach for the retired Ralph MIller. In 89-90 the Beavers, playing with Ralph's players, went 22-7 and were PAC-10 champions. Since then the Beavers have had only 1 winning season in 04-05 under current Head coach Jay John.

Since 1989 the Beavers record is 195 and 291 including their 9-12 record to date (1/26/07) this season, and the Beavers have been in the polls only once (1989), climbing to #15 before falling out of the top 25. They have finished the season 3rd or higher in the PAC-10 only once (1889) and have one conference title.

In the 19 seasons prior to the 1989 season the Beavers suffered only two losing seasons and had a record of 359 wins and 186 loses and ranked as high as #1 in the nation during that time. In those 19 seasons the Beavers finished the season third or higher in 15 of 19 seasons in conference play, winning 4 conference titles.

Since 1989 we have had 4 different coaches at OSU with no noticeable improvement.

Oregon State Basketball was once the 6th winningest program in NCAA history (prior to 1990). Now the Beavers have dropped all the way down to 14th on the list of winningest programs in NCAA history and is dropping fast.

So, now what? Can Beaver Basketball recover from this? Of course the answer is yes! After all, the football team had 28 consecutive losing seasons and now has enjoyed a trend of success and facilities improvements that has never been seen in the football program before. But how is it to be accomplished?

• Do the Beavers need to hire a respected coach with personal ties to the community? (like Mike Riley)
• Do the Beavers need to hire a big name coach with proven history of success in coach basketball? (like Dennis Erickson)
• Is Jay John the right guy to make the program turn the corner and be successful once again?
• Do we need to improve our facilities to attract players of better quality?
• Do we need to hire a coach that can take the best players we can get and make them better?

In my humble opinion, it is going to be a combination of many of those points.

• Gill needs a major face lift to make it better for fans as well as players. The Gill annex is the first step toward that end but there is still work to be done with Gill for the fans (restrooms, concessions, leg room)
• A coach with a history that fans and players can get behind is the first step. I thought Jay John would be the guy to get the job done but it appears that is not the case.

Oregon State needs to get the kind of coach that has experience the players will trust in as well as the experience on how to get the players to work hard and improve. Larry Brown comes to mind first. He is probably to old and would not consider a college career, but that type of coach. One who has been successful where ever he has gone is who we need. Even if it is only for a few years, it may be the breath of life the program needs to get the ball rolling again.

Once that happens the fans will return and more money will be available to make the improvements needed to make the fans comfortable in Gill.

I have great memories of those winning seasons with Ralph Miller and how fun it was to go to games and watch a great team on the floor. I hope the Beavers can find it in themselves to bring back the glory days of OSU Basketball.

BFS