Back on November 19th, nobody blinked when Oregon State came up just short against then-ranked #5 Notre Dame, in a hard-fought 72-67 contest.
While the Beavers had led for the better part of the contest, allowing a lead to slip-away late in the fourth quarter, the intensity of the 7,570 fans packed into Gill Coliseum that day was just another sign of the changing tide for head coach Scott Rueck’s program.
Rueck after all, is still trying to build the Beavers into one of the programs whose name is mentioned alongside the likes of UCONN, Notre Dame, Baylor, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Louisville, on a yearly basis.