CORVALLIS, Ore. — Jim Les said he wrote one word on the board before sending his UC Davis men’s basketball team onto the floor of legendary Gill Coliseum to battle Pac-12 foe Oregon State Tuesday night.

“Opportunity,” explained the Aggie head coach. “We have a great opportunity to do something special here.”

“This group of young men have truly high character and they deserved this win,” Les added. “We had a couple of tough losses earlier this season when we played well below our standards, but these guys stayed together and never doubted and practiced hard and paid attention to details. We executed at a high level tonight.”

“You don’t get many chances to win in a Pac-12 arena and I was really glad we could finish it after they made a run,” Les noted. “Our conditioning is really good. We didn’t get tired down the stretch. We were able to handle everything they threw at us and make some clutch shots at the end.”

“We have a number of guys who have been in a lot of close game situations and they have a lot of trust in each other. It was awesome the way they executed at the end,” Les explained.

“Ezra put us on his back tonight and took over the game,” Les added. “There’s a lot of history in this building and this is a game our guys are going to remember for a long time. It’s great when you play your heart out and get a W. When you have that kind of mentality, good things will happen to you.”

Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle, whose team was the Cinderella of last year’s NCAA tournament, said simply “No excuses. We lost to a very good basketball team. It’s disappointing obviously, but they just imposed their will on us right out of the gate in the second half.”