CORVALLIS - His double-breasted suit jacket still buttoned, Wayne Tinkle turned his back to the action before him on Ralph Miller Court.
The Oregon State men's basketball coach with a 6-foot-10 frame began frantically waving his arms up and down toward the announced crowd of 5,330 in Gill Coliseum, attempting to raise their volume.
Tinkle twice implored the crowd to give more Thursday night in the closing minutes of what would ultimately be a 69-63 victory over UCLA. The gestures came as the Beavers finished on a 12-3 run, cementing a win that their coach acknowledged was significant for a team still finding its footing after a disastrous five-win season.
"We had to have it," Tinkle said. "It's always funny. I used to, when I was a little younger, say there was no such thing as a must-win until you're facing elimination. But these guys have been through so much. They deserve these wins."
OSU (11-7, 3-3 Pac-12) returned from its trip to Arizona last week still reeling from two missed opportunities against Top 25 opponents. Both losses came after they held leads in the second half, including a 13-point advantage against Arizona State last Saturday. Players described a silence that hung over the team even after a return to Corvallis.
All seven losses this season have come after the Beavers built a second half edge. And once again Thursday, they watched a 48-40 lead with 12 minutes to play disappear in the span of two minutes and 22 seconds due to a UCLA 8-0 run.
Oregon State began to wilt as the Bruins turned up their defensive pressure, throwing the passes away during a sloppy stretch that forced Tinkle to call a timeout. He later said he ripped into his team for their carelessness, but soon found Tres Tinkle and Seth Berger vocally picking up their teammates amid the run.
"It was just in due time that we were going to pull away from it," Tres Tinkle said.
All five OSU starters finished in double figures. Tinkle led the Beavers with 16 points and six rebounds, Drew Eubanks and Stephen Thompson Jr. each had 12, Ethan Thomson scored 11 and Berger added 10 to continue his vastly improved stretch of play during conference games.
They shot 36.5 percent from the floor (23 of 63), marking the second-lowest shooting percentage in a victory for the Beavers under Wayne Tinkle. But they also held UCLA to 63 points, matching the team's second-lowest scoring output of the season.
The Bruins had scored a league-best 86.3 points per game over the past three weeks. On Thursday, the up-tempo squad finished with only six fast break points.
The two teams slogged through an ugly first half before OSU closed on a 6-0 run to go up 31-26 at the break. The Beavers crashed the glass aggressively all night, missing numerous put-back chances but ultimately tallying 18 offensive rebounds and a 45-37 edge on the glass. Eubanks led the team with seven rebounds, although seven players had at least four.
Still, they risked blowing their eighth second half lead of the season as UCLA took a one-point edge on four different occasions.
Yet after Aaron Holiday drilled two free throws with 3:24 remaining to put the Bruins up 60-59, Tres Tinkle bailed his team out of a stagnant possession by drilling three-pointer from the right wing and prompting his coach and father to again pump up the crowd.
Following an air ball by Thomas Welsh from the right baseline, Thompson Jr. hit a three-pointer from the right corner to extend the lead to five points. UCLA missed its next two shots before Berger, who had returned to the game with four fouls and 5:33 to play, delivered an assist from the high post to Eubanks for a one-handed jam through a foul to go up 67-60 with 34 seconds remaining.
Holiday led UCLA with 22 points, while Welsh added 10 points and 13 rebounds.
The Beavers will have another test at 5 p.m. Saturday against USC, who captured a win over Oregon in Eugene on Thursday night. But for an OSU team that emphatically stated early in the week they were tired of learning lessons through losses, the group created recent evidence it could close out a narrow win in the final minutes.
"We haven't been pushing any panic buttons," Wayne Tinkle said. "Just continuing to press these guys to get better knowing that we're coming back home. And if we can put some momentum together tonight, find a way, it could slingshot us."
-- Danny Moran