CORVALLIS -- The first clue that there are a lot of people crammed inside Gill Coliseum, Gabby Hanson notes, is that it's hot.
And as the Oregon State senior guard walked up the stairs from the Beavers' locker room in the basement to the main floor, it crept into her mind that Sunday night would be the last time she'd experience that environment as a player.
But Hanson and fellow starter Sydney Wiese made sure the final home game of their careers would not also be the final game of their entire careers. They combined to score 26 points to propel the No. 2 seed Beavers to a 64-52 victory over seventh-seeded Creighton Sunday evening to advance to the NCAA Tournament's Sweet 16 for the second consecutive season.
"I'm thankful that we have some more basketball left to play," Wiese said. "But to close this chapter in Gill like that, it's incredible."
OSU moves on to face No. 3 seed Florida State on Saturday in the Sweet 16 in Stockton, California. No. 1 seed South Carolina has also already advanced to the regional semifinals, while No. 4 seed Miami will play 12th-seeded Quinnipiac Monday for the final Sweet 16 spot in the Stockton Region.
Wiese, OSU's star and the Pac-12's all-time leader in three-pointers, finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists, bouncing back from an outing when she shot 1 of 8 in the Beavers' first-round scare against No. 15 seed Long Beach State. Hanson, who entered Sunday averaging 6.3 points per game, scored 13, including 11 in the first half.
The Beavers (31-4) never trailed and led by as many as 15 points in the second half. It was quite the shift from Friday's tournament opener, when a relentless Long Beach State team kept the Beavers on upset alert throughout their 56-55 victory and had five attempts at the winning basket in the game's final minute.
The quick turnaround between first- and second-round games, though, allowed the Beavers to remember how tough March Madness is while also flushing the off game. Wiese compared it to a typical Friday-Sunday Pac-12 weekend, where this season the Beavers responded to both a road loss to UCLA in mid-January and a stunning home blowout defeat to USC in mid-February with a win about 48 hours later.
On the floor Sunday, OSU's end-to-end performance naturally started with its defense. The Beavers held Creighton's tricky motion offense to 2 of 10 from three-point distance, an effort coach Scott Rueck called "heroic."
"This is a team that operates with efficiency and unselfishness and shoots the three from every position on the floor at times," Rueck said of Creighton. "Our team welcomed the challenge, rose to it, and you just saw the heart that this team plays with."
Still, OSU withstood a fourth-quarter charge by the Bluejays. After a layup by Sydney Lamberty cut OSU's lead to 54-48 with 6:32 to play, Hanson connected on a layup and Mikayla Pivec sank a long jumper on the Beavers' next two possessions to get the advantage back up to double digits. Creighton never got closer than eight points after that.
After the game, Hanson and Wiese, along with fellow senior Kolbie Orum and redshirt junior Breanna Brown gathered together to take in a simple message -- "we did it." This group that became the first class in school history to make the NCAA Tournament all four years of their careers also finishes with a 60-6 mark inside Gill -- and the last victory catapults the Beavers into the Sweet 16 for both the second consecutive year and second time ever.
Hanson let that finality creep into her mind just before taking the floor Sunday evening. But in the minutes following the game, she still had not fully grasped that she will never play on her home floor again.
"There's a block right now, where I'm just not letting it hit," she said. "Because if I do, it's just gonna be too much."
And as the Oregon State senior guard walked up the stairs from the Beavers' locker room in the basement to the main floor, it crept into her mind that Sunday night would be the last time she'd experience that environment as a player.
"I'm thankful that we have some more basketball left to play," Wiese said. "But to close this chapter in Gill like that, it's incredible."
OSU moves on to face No. 3 seed Florida State on Saturday in the Sweet 16 in Stockton, California. No. 1 seed South Carolina has also already advanced to the regional semifinals, while No. 4 seed Miami will play 12th-seeded Quinnipiac Monday for the final Sweet 16 spot in the Stockton Region.
Wiese, OSU's star and the Pac-12's all-time leader in three-pointers, finished with 13 points, seven rebounds and four assists, bouncing back from an outing when she shot 1 of 8 in the Beavers' first-round scare against No. 15 seed Long Beach State. Hanson, who entered Sunday averaging 6.3 points per game, scored 13, including 11 in the first half.
The Beavers (31-4) never trailed and led by as many as 15 points in the second half. It was quite the shift from Friday's tournament opener, when a relentless Long Beach State team kept the Beavers on upset alert throughout their 56-55 victory and had five attempts at the winning basket in the game's final minute.
The quick turnaround between first- and second-round games, though, allowed the Beavers to remember how tough March Madness is while also flushing the off game. Wiese compared it to a typical Friday-Sunday Pac-12 weekend, where this season the Beavers responded to both a road loss to UCLA in mid-January and a stunning home blowout defeat to USC in mid-February with a win about 48 hours later.
On the floor Sunday, OSU's end-to-end performance naturally started with its defense. The Beavers held Creighton's tricky motion offense to 2 of 10 from three-point distance, an effort coach Scott Rueck called "heroic."
"This is a team that operates with efficiency and unselfishness and shoots the three from every position on the floor at times," Rueck said of Creighton. "Our team welcomed the challenge, rose to it, and you just saw the heart that this team plays with."
Still, OSU withstood a fourth-quarter charge by the Bluejays. After a layup by Sydney Lamberty cut OSU's lead to 54-48 with 6:32 to play, Hanson connected on a layup and Mikayla Pivec sank a long jumper on the Beavers' next two possessions to get the advantage back up to double digits. Creighton never got closer than eight points after that.
After the game, Hanson and Wiese, along with fellow senior Kolbie Orum and redshirt junior Breanna Brown gathered together to take in a simple message -- "we did it." This group that became the first class in school history to make the NCAA Tournament all four years of their careers also finishes with a 60-6 mark inside Gill -- and the last victory catapults the Beavers into the Sweet 16 for both the second consecutive year and second time ever.
Hanson let that finality creep into her mind just before taking the floor Sunday evening. But in the minutes following the game, she still had not fully grasped that she will never play on her home floor again.
"There's a block right now, where I'm just not letting it hit," she said. "Because if I do, it's just gonna be too much."
