Creation of a Contender.

Byline: Rob Moseley The Register-Guard

At this stage of the season 25 years ago, the Oregon State men's basketball team was in the midst of the best run any college program in the state has ever enjoyed.

In January 1981, the Beavers ascended to the top of the polls, and remained at No. 1 in the coaches' poll for eight weeks. They won 26 straight to open that season before dropping their regular-season finale, then an improbable second straight first-round NCAA Tournament game.

The team was made up mostly of in-state players, and came together under the leadership of the inimitable Ralph Miller, the very definition of the crusty old coach. It featured five seniors who were together four years, plus two key additions for that final, historic season.

Books have been written about those teams, that coach, that season. Twenty-five years later, it's worth one more look back. It also begs the question: What will it take for Oregon State, or even Oregon, to reach the heights achieved by the Beavers of 1981?

All the way to No. 1

The seeds of the 1981 team's run were planted in 1976, when the Beavers added an unheralded center from California named Steve Johnson.

Raised in a strictly religious family, Johnson left home in order to play prep basketball. He played only one season in high school, allowing Miller and his ace recruiter, assistant Jim Anderson, to slip in and lure him to Corvallis.

The next year, the Beavers landed a pair of big guards from Portland, Mark Radford and Ray Blume. Radford was considering some other West Coast schools, but Blume was on thin ice academically, and besides that was an undersized post in high school, leaving him few other options.

That class also included Jeff Stoutt of Lake Oswego, and forward Bill McShane. It wasn't a particularly highly regarded group, and few projected the success it would eventually enjoy. But back in those days, Miller and Anderson set the goal of getting two good seasons out of their players, allowing them two years to mold the freshmen.

The pieces were in place.

"They were a pretty mentally tough group of kids," Anderson said Monday. "And I think they all had good high school coaching. ... We got some kids that were pretty well-founded in the fundamentals of the game. So we had a good basis to work with."

Johnson redshirted in 1977-78 with a foot injury, and that year started ignominiously, with two losses to North Carolina, one to Wake Forest and another at Oregon. But the team was coming together, and the Beavers rallied to go 16-7 the rest of the way.

The next year, with Johnson, Blume and Radford all starting, Oregon State went 18-10 and reached the National Invitation Tournament. The Beavers lost in the first round, a trend that would continue the next two seasons.

By 1979-80, the Beavers were on the national radar. They went 26-4 that season, inching up the polls all the while. On offense, they combined Johnson's deadly hook shot with the deadeye shooting of the guards, all within Miller's unselfish, pass-first system. And on defense they were tenacious, Blume and Radford setting the tone with their pressure on the perimeter.

"When they pressed, they were pretty damn good," said reporter Bud Withers of the Seattle Times, who covered that team for The Register-Guard. "With those big guards, they could just get after you."

Oregon State was ranked fifth to close out the 1979-80 season, and seventh the following preseason. That offseason, the Beavers added a top-rated in-state recruit, Charlie Sitton of McMinnville, and junior college guard Lester Connor.

The Beavers won eight straight nonconference games to open the 1980-81 season, then opened Pac-10 play at Arizona State. The Sun Devils were undoubtedly more talented - with a future NBA backcourt of Fat Lever and Byron Scott - but the Beavers caught them napping and escaped with a 71-67 win. Three weeks later, they dodged another bullet at Washington, getting a tying basket just before the buzzer in regulation from Johnson, who scored 38 in the overtime victory.

In the interim, Oregon State moved to No. 1 in both The Associated Press poll of media and the United Press International poll of coaches. The Beavers would hold the top spot in the UPI poll for eight weeks, drilling the likes of California, Oregon and Washington State along the way.

"They'd get up on teams 20 points in the first half and it was on cruise control," said Hal Cowan, the former sports information director at Oregon State. "It was poetry in motion watching that team play."

To open March, the Beavers ended a 10-game losing streak at Pauley Pavilion by beating UCLA for the second time that season. Four days later, they clinched the Pac-10 title at home against Arizona.

And that's when the 1980-81 season unraveled. On March 7, Arizona State came to Corvallis for revenge, and ended OSU's 26-game winning streak. The game was delayed by senior night festivities, and each year afterward, Cowan said, Miller recognized his seniors after their final game rather than before, believing the 1981 ceremony threw off his team's rhythm.

Nevertheless, Oregon State was a No. 1 seed to the NCAA Tournament. The Beavers were to play Kansas State on a neutral court at Pauley Pavilion. The Wildcats were just as scrappy as Oregon State, and boasted a future NBA star in Rolando Blackman.

With the score tied 48-48, it was Blackman who hit a jump shot just before the buzzer.

"It was just one of those things," Anderson said. "But I think, if we'd have got through that, we could have won the national title."

Can it be done?

In the 25 years since, the Beavers reached the NCAA Tournament six times, most recently when point guard Gary Payton led a team coached by Anderson into the Big Dance. That was in 1990, the first season not played under Miller, who passed away in 2001.

Until last year's NIT berth, that was the last time Oregon State reached the postseason, or even posted a winning record.

So what would it take for another OSU team to reach No. 1?

First, Withers said, would be coaching stability. In the 11 seasons since Anderson stepped down, the Beavers have had three coaches. With all the pressure to win immediately, it would be hard to stick to a system, as Miller did throughout his career, until a group of players finally came along that ran it to perfection.

"If you think you have the right coach, you've got to stick with him through good times and bad," Withers said. "You can't keep going through this cycle of, every four or five years, changing coaches."

Then, Anderson said, the Beavers would need to find another class of recruits good enough to compete at an elite level, but willing to play in Corvallis. In the 1970s, Oregon State could rely on its ability to scout unsung players and mold them into solid contributors. Now, the best prep players in the state are targeted by coaches around the country, and if they did come to Oregon State, there's always the chance they might leave early for the NBA.

Case in point, the amazing group of in-state prep talent at the moment. Kevin Love of Lake Oswego and Kyle Singler of South Medford are national-caliber recruits, but at the moment they seem headed for either Duke or UCLA. And Love, a big man with a deft passing touch, will surely feel the pull of pro ball early in his collegiate career.

No longer can a coach hope to sign a big class of solid players and expect to develop them over four years in the same system, as Miller did.

"Basically, at that time Oregon State was getting everybody in the state," Cowan said. "In basketball, you went to Oregon State if you were good. But I don't know that you can find five, six individuals in the state and have time to develop them or not. That was kind of a rarity."

What the Beavers have shown the ability to do, as Miller did, is mine the state for under-recruited talent with big potential. David Lucas was OSU's leading scorer last season after originally joining the team as a walk-on, and Chris Stephens, one of the team's leading scorers this season, also initially came to Corvallis without a scholarship.

Combine a couple of top-rated recruits with a couple of projects like Lucas or Stephens, and a base would be set for reaching the national elite.

"In a lot of ways," Withers said, "it takes a lot of luck."

Withers said the best of example of a program replicating the unlikely success of the 1981 Beavers could be Gonzaga, which has become a force nationally in the past decade. The program got rolling behind unheralded recruits like Richie Frahm of Battle Ground, Wash., and now the Zags are the best team in the region, regularly keeping the top talent from their area at home.

This year, with All-American forward Adam Morrison back for his junior year, the Zags are ranked No. 5, and could ascend to No. 1 given the right combination of losses by other teams.

So the blueprint is there for the Beavers. The Zags are showing the way right now. As Oregon State itself did 25 years ago, when the Beavers went all the way to No. 1 in the nation, and stayed there for eight historic weeks.

OSU OUTLOOK

The week ahead for Oregon State's men's basketball team:

Opponents: Thursday vs. Washington State, 7 p.m.; Saturday vs. Washington, 7 p.m. Both games at Gill Coliseum.

TV/Radio: Saturday's game will be telecast by FSN. Both games are carried by KKNX-AM (840). Saturday's game will also be carried by KNND-AM (1400).

Ticket information: (800) GO-BEAVS.

Note: Senior guard Jason Fontenet, who did not travel with the Beavers on their road trip last week, rejoined the team for practice Monday and will be available to play Thursday.

CAPTION(S):

Ralph Miller brought in athletes who ran his system to perfection. Harley Soltes / The Register-Guard Steve Johnson (33) was a special recruit for Oregon State who played only one season of high school basketball before becoming a force with the Beavers.