Oregon State Women's Basketball: Wednesday Notebook

Following a sweep of the Washington schools, the Oregon State women's basketball team returns home to Gill Coliseum for a two-game slate against Colorado and Utah.

The Beavers played some of their best defensive basketball of the season following the loss to ASU, and OSU will need to keep up their strong play this weekend as the Utes in particular have risen to prominence this season.

BeaversEdge.com senior writer Brenden Slaughter was in Corvallis this week and has the scoop on the Beavers heading into another important weekend of play.

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Just a week ago, the No. 9 Oregon State Women's Basketball team (17-3, 7-1 Pac-12) was in unfamiliar territory. The Beavers were fresh off an emotional double-overtime 79-76 loss to Arizona State that tested them in ways they hadn't been tested in 2018-19.

It was one of the few times in recent memory when Scott Rueck's heralded defense couldn't get the stops late in the game in order to come out on top.

"It was what we needed. The ASU loss was a tough one to take because we couldn't get a stop when we needed one, so things had to be adjusted," Rueck said. "We responded with the best defensive intensity of the season. It was a great defensive performance all weekend."

Following the loss, the Beavers took a deep-dive into film study to examine how to counteract the focal points of an opposing offense and how to play better team defense. The Beavers pointed to playing individual defense rather than as a team as part of the problem, and that was something was going to be addressed by Rueck and his staff.

The Beavers may have had a chip, or rather a boulder, on their shoulder in the first contest following the loss as the Beavers blasted Washington 86-39 in Seattle.

Combine the UW win with another solid defensive effort in the 52-35 win over Washington State to conclude last weeks' play and it's clear that whatever tinkering the Beavers did last week certainly made difference.

"We needed to respond with intensity and a great effort and we did," Rueck said. "I liked the vibe coming off the ASU loss. During our film study this past week, we looked at ways we can make our opponents uncomfortable more often. It was a great week of preparation and it carried right into the weekend. The effort and execution didn't surprise me."

Added junior guard Mikayla Pivec: "It's always a successful trip when you come home with two wins. We took a deep dive into what we needed to fix defensively and knew that if we wanted to win we couldn't give up as many points to the focal points of an opposing offense."

While the Beavers' first contest of the week comes against lowly Colorado (10-9, 0-8) on Friday, the biggest test for Scott Rueck and Co. will come on Super Bowl Sunday as the Beavers host one of the hottest teams in the Pac-12 and the country in Utah (18-1, 7-1 Pac-12) .

4th year coach Lynne Roberts has the Utes playing as well as anyone in the country as they've tallied a 17-1 mark and have a marquee win under their belt as they defeated No. 6 Stanford 75-68 in Salt Lake City last Sunday.

"There's such an impressive belief and energy and their will to win is clearly as good as anybody in the conference," Rueck said of Utah. "(Megan) Huff is the heart and soul of the team and is a great post player. Their only loss is a banked-in buzzer-beater shot against Arizona State, so it's going to be a tough challenge this weekend."

Utah's rise over the past few weeks has certainly caught the eye of the Beavers, so much so that senior guard Katie McWilliams offered her thoughts on just how much the Utah program has improved under the leadership of Roberts.

"It's like wow, someone beat Stanford," McWilliams said. "It shows how tough our conference is. Utah's basketball program has really grown since I've been here and (Lynne Roberts) has done a really good job. Their players have become dominant in this conference and beating Stanford isn't easy."

In terms of the big picture, Utah's win over Stanford may turn out to be a blessing for the Beavers.

After falling to ASU, the Beavers found themselves on the outside looking in for the Pac-12 regular season crown with heavyweights Oregon and Stanford both sitting undefeated in conference play. Now that Stanford has the same number of losses that OSU and Utah has, the Beavers have a clearer path, albeit a tough one, to a Pac-12 regular season title.

"Happy," Pivec said when describing her reaction to the Utes beating Stanford. "It helps us in the hunt of trying to move up in the standings or try and knock off the top dogs in Oregon and Stanford."

A lot is yet to be determined in the Pac-12 WBB race, but it could become clearer in the next three weeks for the Beavers, as they have two matchups with the Ducks in mid-February in addition to two home games with Colorado and Utah this week before road contests with California and Stanford.

The next three weeks will be daunting for the Beavers, but McWilliams feels that as long as OSU continues their one game at a time mentality, they'll be a good position.

"We have to take it game by game," McWilliams said. "We can't take a game like Colorado for granted because they've competed very well in the last few weeks. We know every team is going to come out with great effort. Even with experience, we have to come out focused and on our A game."

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

After missing out on hosting the postseason last year and having to travel to Knoxville, Tenn., it's nice to see the Beavers projected to have the first two rounds in Gill Coliseum.

There's a long ways to go between now and the postseason, but it's always fun to keep an eye on the projections when they start coming out.

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