Freshman Alyssa Martin has helped the upstart Oregon State women's basketball team to a surprising 5-2 record early in the 2010-11 season. CORVALLIS -- When the season began, no one expected much from the Oregon State women's basketball team.
And who could blame the doubters?
The Beavers had a new coach, Scott Rueck, who had
. There were only two players who had any D-I experience after a rash of player defections in the spring that
. Rueck had four walk-ons, all of whom will be expected to play good minutes, which is virtually unheard of in major college basketball.
But lo and behold, the Beavers are 5-2 on the season.
"I think our defense is keeping us in games and giving us a chance to win," Rueck said after OSU's 68-59 win over Cal State Bakersfield (5-2) Tuesday night at Gill Coliseum. "I think these guys have done a great job of adapting to what the other team does well and doing their best to take it away."
That much was obvious Wednesday night when the Beavers' held hot-shooting Bakersfield guard Britney McGee to 13 points and forced her into seven turnovers.
"We made her do things she didn't want to do, we never let her get comfortable," Rueck said. "She leads their team in assists and she had zero tonight. We did not allow her to be a playmaker. This team's commitment to that is what has allowed us to be successful, because we haven't played pretty basketball on the offensive end overall."
That much is true, too but hey, OSU starts two true freshmen and a walk-on.
One of those freshman is Alyssa Martin, the daughter of Earl Martin, who you might remember from the Ralph Miller days.
Martin currently leads OSU with a 15.7 average and on Tuesday went off for 21 points despite a rough shooting night from the field (6 of 16). Martin also had three blocks, one of which went flying into about the 10th row.
"Once the game gets down to the wire, I don't like losing," Martin said. "I want to do everything possible to keep us ahead, if that means drawing a foul or getting a block, I'll do it."
But the real star of the night was senior El Sara Greer, the only player who saw regular action for OSU last year. The senior had 25 points, 11 rebounds and four blocks in a game where OSU needed her presence down low.
"I knew I had to be more of a scorer, that's what Coach told me at the beginning of the season," Greer said of her increased production. "I'm getting better moves for myself, I'm more at ease, not rushing."
She also has pretty good hands, and Martin admitted with a laugh that sometimes she and the other guys "just lob it up there, and she'll come down with it."
Scott Rueck had to fill his roster with four walk-ons, but it's worked out well so far for the first-year women's basketball coach at OSU.Besides Tuesday's victory over Bakersfield (which has a 5-2 record and beat Oregon 82-78), the Beavers have wins over Long Beach State, Cal State Northridge, Eastern Michigan and UNLV. OSU won at UNLV, handing the lady Runnin' Rebels their first loss of the season. They also played Rutgers -- a program rich with tradition -- within 10, and were ahead of the Scarlet Knights at halftime.
So how much longer can OSU keep sneaking up on teams?
"At this level everybody takes notice of everybody," Rueck said. "We all need W's. I know maybe people have written us off before the year, but we're still a Pac-10 program. For a Long Beach to come in here, or a Bakersfield or UNLV, a win over a Pac-10 program, no matter what their situation is, is big. Maybe we've snuck up on teams a little bit, but not for long -- the first five minutes into a game, maybe."
The Beavers have four more games to tune up for Pac-10 play -- they travel to Arizona State on Dec. 31 -- and will be in action again this Friday night when they host Pepperdine at 7 p.m.
Can OSU get another win against a respectable WCC program?
If the preseason has taught us anything so far, it's this: Don't count them out.
--Lindsay Schnell (talking all things college basketball
)
Notes
: I promise that soon we will have more in-depth coverage of the OSU women's hoops team but that will come after this week because as you all know, it's all about Civil War coverage right now ... a special thank you to SID Melody Stockwell who supplied the picture of Alyssa Martin. Oregonian photographers were not available to shoot Tuesday night's game because they were all presumably in Eugene
.