It was “A great day to be a Beaver” Saturday night in New Jersey. OSU junior guard Jared Cunningham scored a career-high 37 points and the Beavers beat the Longhorns 100-95 in overtime.
The Beavers (4-0) play the No. 18 Vanderbilt (3-1) next in a game that decides the champion of the TicketCity Legends Classic.
OSU’s Cunningham played the final few minutes of regulation and overtime with a split lip.
“Jared is a handsome guy and he’s always worried about his looks so I was more worried about that,” Oregon State head coach Craig Robinson told reporters after the game. “I wasn’t worried about him coming out of the game. He is a warrior. He looks slight but he is wiry strong and he’s a huge competitor so he wasn’t coming out of the game.”
The Beavers are a solid basketball team historically, but in recent decades have struggled. The game against Texas was the first 100-point game since the Beavers beat UC-San Diego, 116-78, on Nov. 25, 1997.
This is the third consecutive game the Beavers have scored 80 or more points; the first time the program has done that since Jan. 25 to Feb. 1, 2003 when they scored at least that many against Washington, USC and UCLA in back-to-back-to-back games.
Another place the Beavers have struggled in recent years is the charity stripe. In this game, it wasn’t an issue. Cunningham was 20-of-23 from the free throw line and Oregon State was 31-for-43 overall.
J’Covan Brown had 25 points – 18 in the first half – and nine assists for the Longhorns, while Myck Kabongo had 13 points.
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