Oregon State was coming off a 27-win season that ended in the Elite Eight of the women's NCAA Tournament last March when the Beavers lost most of their team and most of their conference.
Eight players from last year's roster who had eligibility remaining, including the top six scorers, left Oregon State after that deep postseason run. And the Pac-12, their conference home for 38 seasons, was down to them and Washington State because of realignment.
But the Beavers (19-15) got back into the NCAA field again this year, with an automatic berth as West Coast Conference tournament champions. They are a No. 14 seed that has to go to the other side of the country to play at North Carolina (27-7) on Saturday.
“I’m ecstatic," said 15th-season coach Scott Rueck, who took Oregon State to the Final Four in 2016. “So happy for the team. ... Believed and stayed positive when things didn't look quite right, and then things started to look better, and all of a sudden we've got a team worth of being in the Big Dance.”
While the Pac-12 is being rebuilt, Oregon State and Washington State are playing in the WCC as affiliate members.
The Beavers finished fourth in the regular-season standings, then won three games in as many days at the conference tournament. Kelsey Rees hit a game-winning shot to beat San Francisco in the opener before they beat top seed Gonzaga in the semifinals, and overcame Portland in the championship game.
“We might have had a little chip on his shoulder, but we just stayed so tight, and so together. And that’s what got us so far,” said sophomore guard Kennedie Shuler, one of the five returning players.
Oregon native Tiara Bolden, a senior guard averaging 8.2 points a game, joined the Beavers this season from La Salle, where she played only one season after junior college.
“My mind is literally blown away,” Bolden said after the Beavers watched the Selection Show together Sunday night. “I’m still like jittery, still shaking just for us. Like seeing us on the screen, it was definitely incredible.”
The Beavers lost five of their first six games to start the season, and after a four-game conference losing streak in January were 9-13 overall. Rueck is sure that there were times when his players doubted what they could do, and probable even wondered if it was worth it.
Since that January skid, Oregon State has won 10 of its last 12 games. The losses were in overtime against Gonzaga and a 69-66 setback at Saint Mary's.
“We’re built like a traditional team ... you start the year as an inexperienced power (conference) team, that's ultimately what we are,” Rueck said. “We didn’t have the experience and we didn’t know who we were yet, and roles had to be defined and people had to step up, and over the course of the year that’s happened.”
This is the ninth appearance over the last 11 NCAA Tournaments for the Beavers, who before now hadn't been a double-digit seed under Rueck. The Beavers were a No. 3 seed hosting a No. 14 seed last year — that has been reversed this season — and were No. 2 seeds in both 2016 and 2017.
“I remember first-round games that we had to escape," Rueck said. “Everybody’s good this time of year.”
Including these Beavers.
“Here we are, with an opportunity to prove it again, against a really good team on their home floor. And so we’re excited about that,” he said. “But I think the makeup of this group, certainly the experience we have as coaches, the character of this team and the journey that they’ve been on, the way we’ve been playing lately, gives us all some hope.”
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Oregon State players celebrates after defeating Portland in an NCAA college basketball game in the final of the West Coast Conference women's tournament Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Oregon State players celebrate after defeating Portland in an NCAA college basketball game in the final of the West Coast Conference women's tournament Tuesday, March 11, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Australia’s most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith on Friday lost his appeal of a civil court ruling that blamed him for unlawfully killing four unarmed Afghans. Meanwhile a veterans’ advocate called on prosecutors to speed up their investigations of war crime allegations in Afghanistan that have left innocent soldiers under a cloud of suspicion.
Three federal court judges unanimously rejected his appeal of a judge’s ruling in 2023 that Roberts-Smith was not defamed by newspaper articles published in 2018 that accused him of a range of war crimes.
Justice Anthony Besanko had ruled that the accusations were substantially true to a civil standard and Roberts-Smith was responsible for four of the six unlawful deaths of noncombatants he had been accused of.
Roberts-Smith later said he would immediately seek to appeal the decision in the High Court, his final appeal option.
“I continue to maintain my innocence and deny these egregious, spiteful allegations,” Roberts-Smith said in a statement.
“Sunlight is said to be the best disinfectant, and I believe one day soon the truth will prevail,” he added.
Tory Maguire, an executive of Nine Entertainment that published the articles Roberts-Smith claimed were untrue, welcomed the ruling as an “emphatic win.”
“Today is also a great day for investigative journalism and underscores why it remains highly valued by the Australian people,” Maguire said.
The marathon 110-day trial is estimated to have cost 25 million Australian dollars ($16 million) in legal fees that Roberts-Smith will likely be liable to pay.
Roberts-Smith has been financially supported by Australian billionaire Kerry Stokes whose media business Seven West Media is a rival of Nine Entertainment.
Reporter Nick McKenzie, who was personally sued, said Roberts-Smith must be held accountable before the criminal justice system.
Roberts-Smith has never faced criminal charges, which must be proven to the higher standard of beyond reasonable doubt.
Only one Australian veteran of the Afghanistan campaign has been charged with a war crime, former Special Air Service Regiment soldier Oliver Schulz.
Schulz has been charged with murdering an unarmed Afghan, Dad Mohammad, in May 2012 by shooting him three time as the alleged victim, aged in his mid-20s, lay on his back in long grass in Uruzgan province.
Schulz was charged in March 2023. He has pleaded not guilty but has yet to stand trial. Schulz is currently taking part in a committal hearing that will decide whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial.
An Australian military report released in 2020 found evidence that Australian troops unlawfully killed 39 Afghan prisoners and civilians. The report recommended 19 current and former soldiers face criminal investigation. It’s not clear whether Roberts-Smith was one of them.
Police are working with the Office of the Special Investigator, an Australian investigation agency established in 2021, to build cases against elite SAS and Commando Regiments troops who served in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
The Australian Special Air Service Association, which advocates for veterans, has called for the government to establish a time limit for the Office of the Special Investigator rather than allow the allegations to drag on for decades.
“The whole process of dealing with these allegations needs to be completed at best speed,” the association’s chairman Martin Hamilton-Smith said.
The single criminal charge laid so far suggested that evidence behind many allegations was not credible, he said.
Defense Minister Richard Marles, who is acting prime minister in Anthony Albanese’s absence, did not immediately respond on Friday to a request for comment.
Rights activists have noted that the only Australian to be jailed in relation to war crimes in Afghanistan is whistleblower David McBride.
The former army lawyer was sentenced a year ago to almost six years in prison for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.
Roberts-Smith, 46, is a former SAS corporal who was awarded the Victoria Cross and Medal for Gallantry for his service in Afghanistan. Around 39,000 Australians soldiers served in Afghanistan and 41 were killed.
His SAS colleagues are among those calling for him to become the first of Australia’s Victoria Cross winners to be stripped of the highest award for gallantry in battle.
FILE - Ben Roberts-Smith arrives at the Federal Court in Sydney, Australia, Wednesday, June 9, 2021. (AP Photo/Rick Rycroft, File)
