Attention: Oregon State Beavers

Oregon State Beaver basketball, your fans have put you on notice: "This is the year".

Talk about the history of west coast basketball, the Beavers at one time were at the top of the mountain in basketball and they have fallen as hard as it gets in recent years.

You can talk lots about the reasons why. Bad coaching hires, a facility that is in desperate need of repair and lack of recruiting great Northwest area players. But where there is a gym and ample basketballs there is hope, but it needs to come this year in the 2011-12 season and no later than that. Constant rebuilding does not cut it and talk of it is even worse.

The Beavers have a very good group of players on their roster for the 2011-12 season, but something in the past few years is lacking. I do think Craig Robison, the Beavers coach,  needs to loosen up the reins and let the athleticism of his team show by playing a more up tempo style.

For those of you who were not born or don't remember, the Oregon State Beavers for a long period in 1980 were the toast of the nation, were ranked number 1 in the country for many weeks and before that time and after under Ralph Miller had outstanding basketball teams. Then it went south in a hurry and has never come back.

Oregon State basketball, with such a rich history is an important cog in making west coast college basketball prominent again. I would say this past year on paper their talent was much better than their neighbor to the south, the Oregon Ducks, but yet Oregon had a much more successful year.

If Oregon State can will two national championships in college baseball in the 2000s, the why not some success in basketball.

For all us old timers, there was never anything greater than hearing their former awesome radio voice Darrel Aune say "holy jumping up and down martha".

It is the hope of Craw's Corner that martha will soon be return to the building and that the sea of empty orange seats in Gill Coliseum will turn to a sea of orange shirted Beaver fans.

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