The Oregon State Beavers and the Arizona Wildcats meet Thursday in college basketball action from McKale Center. Oregon State is just 3-20 this year and coming off a loss to Colorado. As for Arizona, they’re sitting at 22-2 on the season. The Wildcats beat Washington in their last appearance. Check back all season long for free college basketball picks at Sports Chat Place.
Oregon State won their opener this year, but wouldn’t see victories again until late December. The Beavers are currently riding a 10-game losing streak. They’ve fallen to Colorado, California, Stanford and Colorado again in the last quartet.
In the Colorado rematch, the Beavers were outscored 32-44 in the first half and 32-46 in the second on the way to a 90-64 blowout defeat. The only team double-digit scorer was Dashawn Davis with 22 points and six assists.
Over on the Arizona side, they’ve stayed very consistent this season with only the pair of losses to Tennessee and UCLA. Since then it’s been wins over Arizona State, UCLA, USC, Arizona State again, Washington State and Washington in succession.
In the Washington matchup back on Saturday, the Wildcats scored 45 points in the first half and finished up with 47 more from there in a dominant 92-68 win. Bennedict Mathurin put up 25 points, and Azuolas Tubelis added 21 points with 10 boards.
The Wildcats are 2-5-1 ATS in their last eight at home and 4-1 ATS in their last five overall. Arizona is 5-0 ATS in their last five Thursday games.
Meanwhile, the Beavers are 0-3-1 ATS in their last four road games and 5-17-1 ATS in their last 23 overall. The over is 24-9 in Oregon State’s last 33 overall.
PICK: I’m going to stay with Arizona. The Wildcats are on a great run over the last half-dozen games. They’ve hit 72 or more points in five of those and held opponents to 68 or fewer points in five as well.
As for Oregon State, there’s not a lot to get excited about. They’ve given up 76 or more points in 10 of their last 11 outings so Arizona shouldn’t have much trouble putting up offense in this one. It’ll be a big number everywhere but I think the Wildcats can hit it.