Leave it to the Beavers

After four years spent patiently rebuilding Oregon State's program from its foundations, coach Craig Robinson is two wins away from forcing President Barack Obama to predict his brother-in-law's fortunes in his NCAA tournament bracket.

Robinson's Beavers finally made their breakthrough Thursday, surviving missed free throws, blown leads and a spine-chilling finish to outlast top-seeded Washington in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals.

Jared Cunningham hit a go-ahead layup with 31.8 seconds left, and ninth-seeded Oregon State blew a 15-point lead in the second half before rallying for an 86-84 victory over the two-time defending tournament champion Huskies. The Beavers will play fourth seed Arizona in the semifinals today at Los Angeles.

“We have a very emotional team for a lot of reasons,” Robinson said after fighting to contain the Beavers’ locker-room glee with another tournament game looming in 24 hours. “But I know that I could not be more proud of a team, and have not been prouder of a team, than I am of this team. We have fought hard and lost our share of games by five points and under, and it’s not due to these guys’ lack of hard work.”

Indeed, the Beavers needed hard work to win two conference tournament games for the first time in school history, but they also needed a little luck.

Cunningham scored 18 points and hit two free throws with 6.2 seconds to play despite missing five additional free throws in the final 31.8 seconds. Devon Collier had 19 points and seven rebounds for the Beavers (19-13), who outlasted the league regular-season champion Huskies (21-10) only because Tony Wroten, Washington’s freshman star, couldn’t hit four late free throws of his own.

“That stretch at the end was nail-biting,” said Cunningham, the Pac-12 scoring leader entering the tournament. “We’ve been together from the start. We’re a close-knit group, and we just love each other and want each other to do well.”

Oregon State’s 48-33 lead in the second half turned into an eight-point deficit in less than 11 minutes. Washington then blew a six-point lead in the final 2½ minutes despite Cunningham’s misses at the free-throw line.

Arizona 66, UCLA 58: At Los Angeles, Solomon Hill scored 25 points and Arizona (22-10) defeated UCLA (19-14) despite going 8½ minutes without a field goal in the second half of a quarterfinal victory in the Pac-12 tournament.

California 77, Stanford 71: At Los Angeles, Jorge Gutierrez scored 19 of his 22 points in the second half, Harper Kamp added 17 points, and California (24-8) avenged last weekend’s loss to Stanford (21-11) with a victory over its Bay Area archrivals in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals.

California plays Colorado in the semifinals tonight.

Colorado 63, Oregon 62: At Los Angeles, Carlon Brown scored 18 points and Colorado (21-11) beat Oregon (22-9) in the Pac-12 tournament quarterfinals.