That team endured 14-game losing streak

Oregon State’s 1995-96 men’s basketball media guide heralded the arrival of “The New Crew” on the cover.

Hired away from East Carolina University, new coach Eddie Payne and assistants George Felton, Michael Holton and Rich Wold were brought in to engineer a turnaround and return the Beavers to Pacific-10 Conference and national prominence.

Instead, they walked into a train wreck.

Payne’s charter team was a collection of untested underclassmen, junior college transfers, walkons and imports from the football team. Former West Albany High star J.D. Vetter was the only true veteran, as 1994-95 starters Brent Barry, Mustapha Hoff, Vladimir Heredia, Stephane Brown and four other lettermen had departed.

Predictably, the Beavers faltered after a somewhat promising start and limped home with a 4-23 record and 2-16 in the Pac-10, the worst mark in modern school history.

They lost three times to Oregon. They lost twice in the penultimate Far West Classic. They were embarrassed at Gill Coliseum by Division II Montana State-Billings, and they endured a school-record 14-game Pac-10 losing streak in which they were winless for nearly two months.

That ignominious mark was subsequently erased from the history books when California was forced to forfeit two victories over the Beavers for major NCAA violations. So the official school record is the 13-game tailspin compiled by the current Beavers, who face No. 21 Washington State at 5:30 tonight at Gill Coliseum.

The 1995-96 Beavers see parallels between themselves and the 2008 Beavers, who are winless since defeating Northern Colorado back on Dec. 19.

“My heart goes out to those guys,” said Bobby Edwards, a junior guard in 1996 who now is in medical sales in Sacramento. “I watched them play the entire game against Stanford on Saturday and they didn’t quit. That’s what I liked.

“You can tell when guys just aren’t playing hard. I liked their effort and tenacity. It’s there.”

Added Jeff Riggs, a businessman in Bozeman, Mont., who in 1996 was a freshman walkon from Henley High in Klamath Falls who earned significant playing time: “I think our team was great, and it sounds like the team now is the same way,” in dealing with adversity, he said. “It’s tough to lose, and it’s easy to turn on each other” when everything goes wrong.

“It’s easy to be a great person and a great team when you’re winning every game. But when those tables turn and there isn’t a light at the end of the tunnel, then you find out what you and your team is all about.

“In a weird way it can be an amazing new experience. It’s strange and ironic how much I valued my first season there.”

Poor season forecast

Riggs said most everyone expected the 1995-96 Beavers would struggle, as they had few returnees and many new faces. However, they defeated UC Irvine, won at New Orleans and were 1-1 in Pac-10 play and 3-9 overall after a 63-55 win over Washington at Gill Coliseum on Jan. 12, 1996.

Then the bottom fell out.

Two days later they lost to Washington State. They’d lose twice to California, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona and to Arizona State, once to USC and Washington, and to Washington State again before finally breaking through against USC in their next-to-last game.

OSU prevailed 56-54 on March 2, 1996, when Markee Brown scored from inside the key as the clock expired after taking an in-bounds pass from Vetter. That basket touched off a wild celebration on the court and from the crowd of 5,038.

“It was our championship, our moment when it didn’t matter what our record was or who we were playing,” Riggs said. “We got a win, we were happy. It was just a huge lift off our shoulders.”

As bad as those Beavers were, the slowdown style Payne used to compensate for the dearth of talent kept them competitive. They lost 66-59 to No. 14 Arizona; 69-60 at No. 19 UCLA; 57-51 to California; 63-58 in overtime at Arizona State; and 68-66 to No. 17 UCLA at home when a 3-point shot by Rob Williams rimmed out at the buzzer.

“We weren’t very good but the guys continued to learn and got better,” Wold said. “To the players’ and to coach Payne’s credit, we were in a lot of games, hanging around and scrapping.

“It was frustrating because (the players) didn’t get rewarded with wins, but they kept trying. We were obviously undermanned and I give all the credit in the world to the kids on that team and to coach Payne. He didn’t get down.”

Former play-by-play broadcaster Darrell Aune said that team had some “terrific” kids, but many should probably have played at a lower level than the Pac-10.

“They were undertalented, but they gave great effort,” said Aune, who now lives in Monmouth and is the broadcast voice of Linfield College athletics. “Those losses didn’t occur because they wanted to lose, or didn’t care. They were outmatched, it’s as simple as that.”

Aune said a 25-point loss to Oregon in the Far West Classic consolation game, and the debacle to MSU-Billings, made it clear the Beavers wouldn’t win many games.

“After (the MSU-B) game we said, ‘Oh, boy, is this going to be a long year,’ ” he said, laughing.

Team stayed together

Riggs stayed at OSU for the 1996-97 season but then transferred to Montana State and lettered twice after redshirting. He recalls his first OSU squad being just as happy and tight as his last MSU club, which won far more games.

“There is always going to be some bickering,” about playing time or something, he said. “There was an opportunity for that to be amplified in that setting, losing so many games, but we did a phenomenal job of battling through it.”

The coaches were frequently out recruiting what would become the star-crossed Corey Benjamin/Carson Cunningham/J.B. Bickerstaff/Ron Grady class, and one or two often missed practice. But whomever was there didn’t short-change a marginally talented team.

“I thought they were unbelievable,” Riggs said. “I remember at Stanford, they wanted to get some excitement going in our locker room,” even though they knew they were outclassed in a game they’d eventually lose 84-51.

“They turned out all the lights, had a boom box on, used flashlights as spotlights and played the Chicago Bulls entrance music. We had a mosh pit in the middle, it was hilarious.

“They put 100 percent into it. They gave a commendable effort for the situation they were in.”

Aune also developed close friendships with most of the staff. He intermittently stays in contact with Payne, now at South Carolina Upstate, and later worked with Wold and Holton at the University of Portland.

“I liked Eddie from the get-go, he was down to earth, a solid guy with a lot of enthusiasm,” Aune said. “He was great to work with.”

Positives in defeat

Riggs said that in a perverse way, that 4-23 season was a blessing because it helped keep him grounded.

“I mean that,” he said. “I’ve gone through a lot of things, had a lot of things go fortunately for me in the last 11 years. That experience was a great one at the time.

“You’re young, in college and you think nothing can go wrong. But after 12 losses in a row it’s kind of a reality check.”

Riggs said he can easily relate to the current Beavers, and has followed their fortunes closely.

“I’m definitely keeping a close eye on them and hoping for that first win, so they can have that euphoria. It was great.”

Aune said it was difficult broadcasting games when he knew the Beavers had little chance of winning.

“Of course it is, but I had a lot of experience at it because of football,” he said, laughing. “But you can’t go down that road as an announcer or coach, because that road leads to nowhere.

“I had that pounded in to me at Washington State (where he majored in broadcast journalism) that every game is different and your responsibility is to do the best job you can do on that night.

“If you’re going to be a pro, you’re going to give it your all, prepare and organize so you give the listener the best you have.”

The Beavers tried to take the same approach. Edwards said one moment from a five-month season still sticks in his mind more than a decade later.

“I remember Riggs told me one time, ‘Misery loves company, so let’s not bring that close to us,’ ” he said. “It was a true test of character to keep coming out every day in practice and go as hard as we could, believe in the program, know we were building for the future, not give up.

“Everybody gave their all, fighting for pride. Nobody wanted to be in the basement of the Pac-10.”

The 1995-96 Beavers

Coaches

Eddie Payne: Head coach, South Carolina Upstate

George Felton: Director of Collegiate Player Personnel, San Antonio Spurs

Michael Holton: Radio and TV broadcasting in Portland, also works in insurance

Rich Wold: Real estate sales, Portland

Players

Sonny Benjamin: Real estate sales, Los Angeles.

Markee Brown: Boys and Girls Clubs of Portland.

Bobby Edwards: Medical sales, Sacramento; volunteer assistant coach at Folsom High.

Justin Moore: Child day care center worker, Mr. mom for his two children, Corvallis.

Rahim Muhammad: Works in Los Angeles for the L.A. Unified School District.

Sasa Petrovic: Professional basketball player in Croatia and Hungary

Sean Pryor: Assistant basketball coach, Mineral Area JC, Park Hills, Mo.

Jeff Riggs: Businessman, Bozeman, Mont.

Jason Roberts: Works at Nike; wife, Heather, is the girls basketball coach at Canby High.

Aaron Thomason: Transferred to Valparaiso; pharamacutical rep, lives in Detroit, sings the gospel.

J.D Vetter: Engineer, Littleton, Colo.

Iyan Walker: Public relations, Kirkland, Wash.

Rob Williams: Transferred to Howard, whereabouts unknown