Following a weekend of action that saw the Oregon State men's basketball team split a road series in L.A., and the Oregon State women's basketball team sweep USC and UCLA at home, BeaversEdge.com gives the latest on Wayne Tinkle and Scott Rueck's teams as they enter the final weeks of the regular season.

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The Oregon State men's basketball team is fresh off a split of the L.A. schools as the Beavers dropped a heartbreaker on Thursday to UCLA (68-67) before bouncing back on Saturday to best USC (67-62) on the Trojans' senior day.

Against the Bruins, Stephen Thompson Jr. scored 21 points and Tres Tinkle posted a double-double, but it wasn't enough as the Beavers couldn't get a quality look in the closing seconds.

Tinkle missed a potential game-winning 3-pointer with 1.8 seconds on the clock. Thompson Jr. went 9-for-14 from the field for his 21 points and added seven assists. Tinkle finished with 19 points and a career-high 16 rebounds.

The Beavers (17-9, 9-5 Pac-12) didn't let the narrow loss to the Bruins hinder them on Saturday as they responded in strong fashion to beat the Trojans. Thompson Jr. and Kylor Kelley each scored 15 points to lead the Beavers. Tres Tinkle had 14 points and 13 rebounds as the Beavers swept the season series versus the Trojans.

In terms of individual history made this past weekend, Thompson Jr. passed A.C. Green and moved into fifth on Oregon State’s career scoring list with 1,695 points.

Oregon State will look to continue its late season push in their final home games of the season this weekend as the Beavers host the Arizona schools.

Arizona (16-12, 7-8) isn't the Arizona of previous seasons as the Wildcats have been wildly inconsistent under Sean Miller this season. After Arizona beat OSU 82-71 in Tucson on Jan. 19, the Wildcats dropped their next seven contests before bouncing back to sweep Colorado and Utah last weekend.

Given that the Wildcats are just 2-5 on the road in Pac-12 play, the Beavers should have a good chance to earn a win against a team that struggles to put it together on the road consistently. OSU has lost six straight to Arizona and hasn't beaten them since January of 2015 when they knocked off the No. 7 Wildcats in Wayne Tinkle's first season.

The Beavers will welcome in Arizona State (19-8, 10-5) on Sunday for senior day for the second straight season. OSU ended its home conference season a year ago with a 79-75 win over the Sun Devils and will be looking to do the same again this year with much more on the line.

A win over the Sun Devils coupled with a win over Arizona would perhaps catch the eye of some in the NCAA selection committee. ASU is widely projected to be in the Big Dance, but if OSU could knock them off in Corvallis, they might put themselves back on the bubble.

It won't be easy as the Sun Devils appear to be peaking at the right time as they've won four of their last five including handing Washington their only conference loss of the season.

While Oregon State's chances of an at-large berth in the NCAA Tournament are quite slim with their NET Ranking of 79, they're still fighting to secure a first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament. If the Beavers are going to make the Big Dance, they'll need to work some magic over the next two weeks and in Las Vegas.

Given that the winner of the Pac-12 Tournament gets an auto-bid to the tournament, a path theoretically exists for every team in the conference. If the Beavers can finish the season on a high-note and bring strong momentum into Vegas, they might make a push for the championship game.

There's a lot left to be decided in the final two weeks of conference play, but if the Beavers want to be playing their best basketball of the season heading into the tournament, they'll need to close out their Gill Coliseum home stand with wins over UA and ASU.

While the Beavers find themselves on the outside looking in when it comes to an at-large NCAA Tournament berth, they're firmly entrenched in the NIT bracket.

According to DRatings.com, Oregon State is projected to be a four seed in the NIT. While the NIT certainly isn't the NCAA Tournament, it still presents an opportunity for the Beavers to continue playing. It's an added bonus that the Beavers would most likely host a first-round NIT game at Gill Coliseum if they're right on the edge of the NCAA Tournament bubble as the top four seeds in the tournament host.

The No. 9 Oregon State women's basketball team clinched a first-round bye in the Pac-12 Tournament thanks to wins over USC (68-61) and UCLA (75-72) at Gill Coliseum.

The Beavers (23-5, 13-3) didn't make it easy on themselves against the Trojans as they had to come back from a 16-0 USC lead to earn the victory. Mikayla Pivec came up big yet again, narrowly missing a double-double with 18 points and eight rebounds. Destiny Slocum finished with 16 points and five assists.

Jo Grymek went for 13 points on 5-for-7 shooting from the floor, and also tallied nine rebounds, two blocks and a steal.

The Beavers saved perhaps their best for last as they outlasted UCLA in a back and forth contest that was up for grabs until the final seconds. Pivec tallied her sixth double-double of the season and Aleah Goodman was on fire as she tallied 21 points on 6-for-12 shooting from the floor. Grymek continued her best basketball of the season as she tallied 10 points on 5-for-7 shooting and set a career-high with seven blocks.

Grymek, who is averaging nearly 10 points and 6.5 rebounds over the last four games, could be the Beavers' X-Factor going into the postseason as very few teams can match her size in the post.

With the home sweep, the Beavers remained in a tie with Stanford for second place in the conference. Since the Cardinal won the only matchup of the year between the two teams in Palo Alto 61-44, the Beavers would need the Cardinal to drop one of their final two games of the regular season while also winning out themselves to get the No. 2 seed in the Pac-12 Conference Tournament.

Given that Stanford plays 10th place Washington State and 11th place Washington on the road, it's unlikely that they'd drop one of those two contests, but not impossible knowing the Pac-12.

Like Stanford, the Beavers will finish their Pac-12 regular season on the road as OSU is set to head to Arizona for matchups with the No. 21 Sun Devils (18-8, 9-6 Pac-12) and Wildcats (17-10, 7-9).

The Beavers split the Arizona schools when they came to Corvallis earlier this season as they defeated Arizona 86-64 but lost 79-76 in double-overtime against Arizona State.

The first stop in the Grand Canyon state is in Tempe as the Beavers will look for a measure of revenge against the Sun Devils. ASU sports a two-game win streak in the series as the Sun Devils bested the Beavers in the Pac-12 Tournament a season ago before upending them in Corvallis earlier this season.

While ASU has been one of the better teams in the conference for the majority of the season, they'll be headed into Friday's matchup with the Beavers on a two-game losing streak. The Bay Area road trip wasn't kind to the Sun Devils as they dropped a 69-60 decision at Cal and were blown out 71-50 at the hands of Stanford.

Earlier this season, Mikayla Pivec talked about the Beavers having a revenge game against USC on the road after dropping a contest there a year prior and there's no reason to think the Beavers won't have some motivation to get the double-overtime loss to ASU out of their mouths.

Beavers' head coach Scott Rueck has mentioned the ASU loss several times in postgame press conferences as a moment of growth for team where they were able to grow and become stronger down the stretches of games because of the loss. My bet would be that the Beavers have had this game semi-circle on their calendar since the Jan. 20th loss and will come out focused and determined to get the win.

Oregon State will conclude conference play on Sunday against the Arizona Wildcats. While UA has been much improved this season thanks in large part to the play of dynamic point-guard Aari McDonald, this is a contest that the Beavers should win.

According to ESPN's Charlie Creme, the Beavers are projected to be a three-seed in the Albany Regional. By way of being a top-four seed, the Beavers would host the first and second round games in Gill Coliseum.

Here's a look at the complete Bracketology from Creme for this week...

(Click on the image to enlarge it)