Really, you could have seen this coming from a mile away.
In one corner, you had a resurgent UCLA Bruins team, which had looked more focused since the firing of Steve Alford (a thing that still happened, in case you forgot) but was playing the 2nd half of a road trip, and which had won games despite a resurgence of some bad tendencies. In the other corner, you had the Oregon State Beavers, who didn’t have nearly the same level of star power as the Bruins, but were playing a more cohesive level of team basketball and were in front of a raucous home crowd.