Oregon State
Utah
Beavers Turn Up Defensive Pressure In 76-58 Win Over Utah
February 04, 2012 | Men's Basketball
Feb. 4, 2012
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SALT LAKE CITY, Utah. - Oregon State relied on its tenacious defense by forcing 23 turnovers with 16 steals and Joe Burton filled up the box score with eight points, 11 rebounds, five assists and a career-high six steals as the Beavers cruised to a 76-58 win over Utah on Saturday afternoon at the Jon M. Huntsman Center.
"Historically, defense has been the best part of our game," Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson said. "This year, because we have been so prolific on the offensive end, our defense has gotten a little bit less attention and less focus. So it's excellent to see these guys play and be able to switch in and out of defenses the way they are supposed to and force the other team into turnovers. That's how you get good."
The Beavers (15-8, 5-6 Pac-12) got 20 points and four steals from Jared Cunningham, 14 points from Devon Collier and a career-high seven points from senior team captain Kevin McShane to win for the fourth time in their past five games, including a 2-1 record in their last three road games.
"We really needed to have a road win because it's hard to get them in this conference," Robinson said. "We had a couple of close losses that we have to make up for so we can't afford to lose games that are winnable. When you get a lead like we had and let it get cut to eight, we had to make sure we kept the pressure on them. Its' really important to get a win on the road."
Oregon State led 16-15 with 9:25 to go in the first half and then turned their defense up a notch to go on a 13-0 run with Cunningham scoring seven of the points and take a 29-15 lead. At the break, the Beavers had their season-average with 10 steals and forced 13 Utah turnovers to lead comfortably, 38-25.
Burton had five of his six steals in the first half and dazzled the crowd of 8,404 with a couple of hook shots that would have made Kareem Abdul-Jabbar proud. When asked about his stat line, Burton had a slight grin and gave a very humble answer.
"My game comes from the team and my team helped me get where I was and my stat line looks good because of the team," he said. "I'm just grateful to be on the team with all of them and they helped me out. It's probably the best stat line I've had, except in high school when I had the quadruple-double, but this is my best in college."
Robinson knew how important Burton's game was for the team. "As well as Jared played, Joe was the most valuable player for this game," the fourth-year head coach said. "He had a couple of miscues right at the beginning of the game but after that it was like he was trying to make up for that for the rest of the game and just carried us in all aspects of the game - rebounding, scoring, defense, assists."
Cedric Martin led Utah (5-17, 2-8) with 19 points and Jason Washburn had a big game for the Utes with 15 points, six rebounds and eight blocked shots.
After three straight road games the past two weeks, the Beavers return to Gill Coliseum to play Washington State on Thursday at 7 p.m. in a game that won't be televised but will be streamed live on Beaver Nation Online.
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