GAME THREAD: Oregon State (6-10) at No. 8 WSU (14-1)

Beasley Coliseum (Pullman), 7 p.m. PT
TV: None

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The Cougs have spent a considerable amount of energy over the past couple of days telling anyone who will listen that they are not looking past Oregon State to the matchup with the suddenly-resurgent Ducks on Saturday. Consider:

“Oregon State — certainly they’ve struggled to get victories, but they’re very talented,” WSU coach Tony Bennett said.

So talented, the Beavers lost to a Division II team this year.

The reality is that this is a terrible, terrible basketball team that has absolutely no shot of winning tonight. Ken Pomeroy puts the Beavers’ chances at just 2 percent, and while that’s a very statistically small number, I’m not sure that anything above zero is warranted here.

Their defense is bad — allowing conference opponents an efficiency rating (what’s that?) of 112.7 — but their offense is even worse. Their overall effective field goal percentage (what’s that?) of 42.6 is 331st in the country. In case you didn’t know, there are only 341 Division I basketball teams. It’s gotten even worse in conference: 37.7 eFG%. That’s beyond atrocious. The scariest part if you’re an OSU fan? They haven’t even played the two elite defensive clubs in the league yet.

And people think this team can figure out a way to jump up and catch the Cougs? If the Cougs were overlooking a potent offensive team such as Cal, I might buy it. But not Oregon State. The only way this game is competitive is if the entire starting five plus Daven Harmeling decide to hit The Coug for a few hours before tip off. And even then, I’m not so sure. We might be talking about historical lows tonight.

I’ll listen to this game on the radio because I’m a hardcore fan, but this game will be a blowout. I’ll be looking for signs that this team is recovered from UCLA and ready to exorcise the Duck demons, not strategies to neutralize a team that more often than not neutralizes itself.

Pac-10 Power Rankings

Two weeks into the Pac-10 season seems like a good time to take stock of how the league is shaping up. Here are my initial power rankings, which we’ll update each week before the weekend action.

1. UCLA (4-0) – Pretty tough to argue with this one. The Bruins have dominated in league play so far, and look like they’re only getting stronger. I ran out of time this week, but I was going to write another followup post on the UCLA game, mostly focusing on how good Kevin Love is. I may yet do that, but to whet your whistle, consider this: The guy is 56-of-67 from the line in his last 11 games — 83.6 percent. If a 6-foot-10, 270-pound big man is going to make shots around the basket, make shots from behind the arc, and hit almost all of his free throws when you foul him, you really have no chance.

2. WSU (2-1) – Some might argue with this one, given the soft schedule and the way the Cougs were handled by UCLA. But really, who else are you going to put at No. 2? I think you can chalk much of that UCLA game up to the matchup, and three road wins to open Pac-10 play counts for a heck of a lot to this writer, no matter who you play. The Cougs are still very good, as will be evident when they exit this weekend 4-1 in the league.

3. Oregon (3-1) – The Ducks look like they’re finally living up to their potential. They seem to finally have found a bit of an identity without Aaron Brooks, now that Tajuan Porter is coming off the bench and hitting his shots again. That swagger looks to be back, although some of that had to be hitting a bit of a roll in front of the friendly quackers at Mac Court. We’ll see how they do on the road this weekend at the Washington school before we’re full believers in the return. I know I’ll have fun watching the two most underrated big men in the country — Maarty Leunen and Jon Brockman — duke it out tonight on FSN.