Beavers face Nebraska with Sweet 16 on line

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) --- The Oregon State Beavers look to advance to the women's Sweet 16 when they take on the Nebraska Cornhuskers Sunday afternoon.

The second-round game in Albany tips off at 1 p.m. Pacific Time. The game is televised on ESPN.

The Beavers trounced Eastern Washington by 22 points on Friday, while Nebraska nipped Texas A&M by 2 points.

Oregon State is a 3-seed with an overall record of 25-7. Nebraska is the 5-seed with a 23-11 record coming into Sunday's match.

'Sign of great things to come'

The Beavers thrived and advanced with their opening round victory. Talia von Oelhoffen said the win "shows that even though we are a young group coming into this tournament, you can talk about our inexperience, but we don’t play that way. I think it’s a sign of great things to come."

Nebraska's second-leading scorer, Jaz Shelley, played two seasons for Oregon from 2019-2021.

"It’s a little bit of a full circle moment for me," Shelley said. "When the itinerary came out and it said we were going to fly from Lincoln to Eugene, I was like, ‘Well, that sounds a little familiar.’ It’s pretty cool. I’m excited to play here and hopefully my season doesn’t end here but it’s a pretty cool feeling to be back in this state."

Scott Rueck is obviously familiar with Shelley’s play on the court, but he’s also familiar with her off of it as he recruited her in high school and even did an in-home visit all the way in her native Australia.

"Always been impressed with her as a competitor. I like her. She’s a cool person," Rueck said. "It’s fun for me to watch her just really rise into not only a leadership role running the team but also a primary scoring role. I’m really happy for her and have a ton of respect for her."

Both Rueck and his Beavers players agree that the way Nebraska plays reminds them of Utah. That is a good omen as the Beavs beat the Utes by 25 and 14 points in their two games this season.

"What we learned is that we can take it to another level. I think both those games were breakthrough games for us. We’d already experienced success before both of those games but both the Utah games we leveled up. The game here might have been the best game we played all year," Rueck said.