Lowly Tennessee Tech earns easy victory

By Brooks Hatch
Gazette-Times reporter

There was no shortage of defining moments in the complete and total systems failure that was Tennessee Tech’s 79-62 destruction of Oregon State on Sunday before an announced crowd of 3,216 at Gill Coliseum.

Several stand out more than others, though, after the mismatch in which the Beavers (5-4) were thoroughly schooled by a TTU squad that was 331st of 338 Division I teams in the most recent RPI rankings, and whose lone Division I victory was over winless Eastern Illinois.

To wit:

TTU’s Frank Davis scored with three seconds left in the first half after two OSU fouls extended a possession. Then, teammate Anthony Fisher stole a lazy in-bounds pass and scored at the buzzer to complete a 4-point play for a 36-25 edge.

With 15:19 left, TTU’s Amadi McKenzie drove unmolested from the top of the key and threw down an authoritative slam for a 47-31 edge. No defender as much as moved to challenge the drive.

With 7:31 to play, Seth Tarver returned a pass to Rickey Claitt along the left wing. However, Claitt was tying his shoe and not looking at the time and the ball rolled into backcourt for an over-and-back violation.

And with 35 seconds left, McKenzie flushed home an alley-oop from Fisher for TTU’s final points - after the Beavers had missed three shots at the other end.

Throw in an assortment of missed layups, frigid (4-23) 3-point shooting, another poor effort from the foul line (16-26) and 15 turnovers leading to 28 TTU points and it’s easy to forgive many in the sparse crowd that headed for the exits with minutes to spare.

OSU shot 21 of 59 overall and struggled throughout against an aggressive defense that had the Beavers out of sync all game.

“We have to make shots against the zone,” OSU coach Jay John said. “We didn’t (finish) layups and we certainly had our opportunities at the free-throw line and we missed out on those as well. We need to make layups and make some more free throws.”

The Beavers trailed by at least 12 points for virtually the final 30 minutes after the Golden Eagles used a 12-2 run to break a 10-10 standoff, the only tie of the game.

OSU’s players were not made available for interviews afterward. However, their body language on the bench for much of the second half spoke volumes about the meltdown following what was thought to be a momentum-generating road trip to California featuring convincing wins over UC Davis and CSU Bakersfield and the return to action of Kansas transfer C.J. Giles.

“I told (the team) the responsibility for this game is on my shoulders,” John said. “I know they are better than what they showed and I know as a coaching staff we are better in preparing guys for games than what we displayed.”

Giles had seven points, eight rebounds and three blocks but fouled out in 16 minutes, a 10-minute improvement from the Bakersfield game, when he was disqualified in six minutes.

“I saw that he still can’t keep his hands to himself,” John said. “We have struggled all year with consistent post play, especially against zone defense. C.J.’s ability to stay on the floor would have helped us. It would have benefited us greatly. He is nowhere near the player that he will be as time passes.”

Marcel Jones had 17 points and Seth Tarver 14 for the Beavers. Fisher, whom John said dominated OSU’s guards and was the best player on the court by far, had 21 points for TTU. McKenzie added 18, Davis 15 and David Minaya 11.

TTU coach Richard Sutton was charitable in his analysis. With holiday road games at Kentucky and Georgia Tech still to come, he could afford to be charitable.

“The Beavers have a couple good offensive players, and we tried to take their two best offensive players out of the game. But, Marcel Jones and Seth Tarver still got their averages,” he said, not adding that many of those points came when the Golden Eagles had a 20-point lead and were more than content to trade baskets.

“We are very fortunate that they didn’t get all their shots off. We have a couple of injuries and the guys really stepped up. I thought that Anthony Fisher played well, as did Amadi McKenzie. They did a great job. We had a really nice team effort.”