The set-up: The 5-23 Oregon State Beavers and the 13-13 Stanford Cardinal have each had disappointing seasons (particularly OSU) but both enter this contest off impressive wins. OSU rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit to record their first league victory in Sunday's 68-67 upset of Utah. Meanwhile, Stanford played just once last week but made it count, taking down its biggest rival Cal, 73-68 at Maples Pavilion which handed a severe blow to Cal's at-large NCAA Tournament hopes.

Oregon State: The Beavers' season all but ended when 6-8 forward Tres Tinkle (20.2-8.3) broke his wrist after six games. Oregon State opened the season by going 4-9 in non-conference play but lost its first 14 Pac 12 games, before breaking through this past Sunday. Guards Thompson scored a career-high 31 points in the win over Utah and leads the team in scoring at 16.8 PPG. Fellow guard McLaughlin (11.1 &3.1 APG) plus the 6-10 Eubanks (14.7 & 8.2) are really all the significant contributors OSU has now, without Tinkle .
Stanford: Swingman Pickens (12.5 PPG) led Stanford with 23 points in Friday's upset of Cal plus the team's best player, the -8 Travis Ried (17.3 & 8.6) also added 19 points and nine rebounds while helping to foul out both Cal centers! The 6-9 Humphrey (9.4-6.4) joins Reid up front with the team's best perimeter players along with Pickens being Allen (7.2), Cartwright (7.1 & 3.5 APG) and Sheffield (7.0).

The pick: Johnny Dawkins was fired at Stanford after eight years, because he led the team to just one NCAA appearance. He did win two NIT titles but the Stanford faithful wanted NCAA, not NIT bids. It's ironic that in his first season as Stanford's head coach, Jerrod Haase's would love to get his team into the NIT. Stanford is 20-2 at Maples Pavilion against Oregon State since 1993 and the Beavers have yet to win on the road this year (0-11 SU getting outscored 80.8-63.0 PPG), so I'll make Stanford a 10* play.