The Oregon State Beavers and the Pittsburgh Panthers meet Friday in college basketball action from Barclays Center. Oregon State is fresh off a loss to Baylor, dropping the team to 3-2 overall. As for Pittsburgh, they took their first loss of the season on Wednesday versus Florida. Here’s a Oregon State vs Pittsburgh Prediction. 

Oregon State Beavers 

The Beavers kicked off the season with three straight wins, but since have dropped consecutive games. Oregon State took out Linfield 82-46 in their opener, then eked out win over Troy 81-80 and beat App State 81-71. In their first loss of the year 84-63 versus Nebraska, the Beavers shot just 35.2 percent from the field and scored only 24 points in the first half. 

Oregon State had another tough matchup on Wednesday versus Baylor, and took another defeat. The Beavers were down 44-26 by halftime and didn’t get much closer in an 82-72 result. Dexter Akanno led the team on 16 points, while Jordan Pope posted 13 points, four rebounds and three assists in the loss. 

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Pittsburgh Panthers 

Over on the Pittsburgh side, they came out of the gate with four straight victories. The Panthers beat NC A&T 100-52, Binghamton 89-60, Florida Gulf Coast 86-74 and Jacksonville 107-56 in that stretch. In the blowout victory over the Dolphins, Pittsburgh posted a whopping 55 rebounds and 24 team assists with just five turnovers. 

Pittsburgh also took a loss in their last matchup—their first of the year. The Panthers were down by five going into the second half then hit a 47-37 deficit in an 86-71 loss. Ishmael Leggett was the leading team scorer on 19 points and nine rebounds. Blake Hinson chipped in 16 points with three boards as well. 

ANDREW’S FREE PITTSBURGH VS OREGON STATE PREDICTION 

I’ll probably just stay with the Panthers. Pittsburgh ran into a strong Florida team in their last outing and didn’t shoot very well at all with 35.3 percent from the field, 29.4 percent (10-of-34) from 3-point range and 13-of-21 (61.9 percent) from the line. The good news is that Pittsburgh posted another strong performance on the boards with 52 rebounds. 

As for Oregon State, they shot pretty well versus Baylor (49.1 percent) but also allowed the Bears to hit 52.4 percent from the field themselves. The Beavers were outmuscled on the boards 39-33, so they’ll have some issues here if they’re not hitting first-chance shots. I like Oregon State to hang around for a while with Pittsburgh pulling off the cover in a physical game.