Oregon State matched its win total from a year ago nine days into the 2022-23 men’s basketball season Tuesday night when the Beavers defeated Bushnell 83-66 in Gill Coliseum.
Glenn Taylor Jr. scored 16 of his team-high 19 points during the second half, and was one of four Beavers to reach double figures. OSU (3-0) shot 52.3% from the floor, despite making only 5 of 20 from three-point range.
Freshman guard Jordan Pope had 15 points, six rebounds and seven assists for Oregon State, while Rodrigue Andela scored 14 and Dzmitry Ryuny had 12.
Spencer Hoffman scored 27 points and grabbed 11 rebounds to lead Bushnell, an NAIA school from Eugene.
Oregon State led by as many as 27 points before eventually settling for a 17-point win.
It wasn’t easy early on, as the Beavers led only 41-34 at halftime. OSU got an early jump, as a putback and a dunk by Dexter Akanno helped build an 11-4 lead. The Beacons kept it close for the first 10 minutes, as two free throws by Spencer trimmed OSU’s lead to 20-17.
Oregon State spurted soon after that, as Ryuny was the driving force on an 11-0 run that increased the lead to 36-21. Ryuny scored 10 of the 11 points, including back-to-back dunks.
Bushnell got as close as 47-42 four minutes into the second half when Oregon State impressively pulled away. Taylor scored seven points during a 9-0 to put the Beavers in front 56-42.
From there, Bushnell had trouble keeping up. Taylor went on a personal 7-0 run as Oregon State established its largest lead at 83-56 with 4:15 remaining. The Beavers didn’t score the remainder of the game.
Oregon State returns to action Saturday when the Beavers play host to Portland State at 7 p.m.
–Nick Daschel | ndaschel@oregonian.com | @nickdaschel
