Santa Clara University’s men’s basketball team will host Oregon State on Saturday, February 28, in their final regular season game before heading to Las Vegas for the Credit Union 1 WCC Championship. The Broncos, holding a 23-7 overall record and a 14-3 mark in conference play, will face the Beavers (16-14, 9-8) at Leavey Center with tip-off scheduled for 5:00 p.m. PT. The game will be broadcast nationally on CBS Sports Network and is also available via audio stream through Sidearm Sports.
The matchup will serve as Senior Night for Santa Clara, honoring Brenton Knapper, Elijah Mahi, Malachi Douyon, and Brendan Yarusso in a pregame ceremony.
Oregon State enters the contest after consecutive wins over Pepperdine and San Diego. The Beavers are competing for the No. 4 seed in the upcoming WCC Tournament and are averaging nearly 70 points per conference game while allowing just over 74 points defensively. Josiah Lake II leads Oregon State in scoring during league play with an average of 12.8 points per game.
This meeting marks the 14th time Santa Clara and Oregon State have faced each other. Although Oregon State holds a narrow lead in the series at seven wins to six, Santa Clara has won four of the last five encounters between the teams. Earlier this season, Santa Clara defeated Oregon State in Corvallis for their first win there since 1952.
In that previous matchup at Gill Coliseum, six Broncos scored in double figures as Santa Clara achieved a decisive 102-64 victory—its first win at that venue since 1952. Elijah Mahi led all scorers with 23 points while Thierry Darlan (14), Jake Ensminger (13), Brenton Knapper (13), Allen Graves (12), and Bukky Oboye (10) also contributed double-digit performances.
Most recently, Santa Clara lost to Saint Mary’s by a score of 86-67 despite Allen Graves recording his second-highest point total of the year with 20 points and Christian Hammond adding another 11 points. This loss secured Santa Clara’s position as the No. 3 seed for the upcoming WCC Championship Tournament.
Santa Clara has now finished among the top four teams in the WCC standings for five consecutive years—the program’s longest such streak since an eight-year run from 1995 to 2002—and can finish no lower than third place this season.
The Broncos’ offense is averaging more than 83 points per game this season, which is close to matching a school record set by the team during the late sixties. Their current scoring margin ranks third-best all-time for the program.
A win against Oregon State would give Santa Clara its twenty-fourth victory of the season—tying them for third-most wins in a single campaign in school history—and would mark their highest number of victories under head coach Herb Sendek since he took over in 2016-17.
Santa Clara has excelled offensively within conference games as well; they rank fifth nationally with an average of nearly eighty-seven points per conference contest and are one of only two teams in their league to have three players averaging more than thirteen points per game: Christian Hammond (15.5), Elijah Mahi (13.8), and Allen Graves (13.5).
At home inside Leavey Center this year, Santa Clara boasts a strong record of thirteen wins against one loss while outscoring opponents by almost seventeen points per game on average.
Elijah Mahi recently earned his second West Coast Conference Player of the Week honor following his performance at USF; he previously received this recognition after scoring twenty-three points against Oregon State earlier this season.
Allen Graves has been named West Coast Conference Freshman of the Week five times so far—a program record for most weekly honors won by any Bronco player.
