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Arenas, Tanner meet in different environment

Gilbert Arenas and Deaundra Tanner of Oregon State know each other fairly well.

Tomorrow night, though, will be their first meeting as collegiate athletes when the Beavers travel down the road from Tempe, where they lost 75-64 last night, to face the Wildcats in McKale Center at 6 p.m.

Arenas and Tanner, a junior point guard, were roommates at the Michael Jordan Camp in San Diego where they coached the same team of youngsters. They also played on the same team at the Say No Classic of Top Prospects in Los Angeles.

"He is very good, he penetrates and he can shoot the three," Arenas said. "He is more of a scoring point guard, but I haven't seen him play this year, so I don't know if he is looking for a shot. But he can really shoot the ball, I know that."

Entering last night's contest with Arizona State, Tanner was averaging a team-high 15.2 points per game and was shooting 46.3 percent from behind the three-point arc.

In last night's loss, Tanner scored 12 points, but only shot 2-of-7 from three-point range.

Despite the below-average percentage at ASU, Tanner's usual three-point percentage could come in handy for the Beavers since taking the ball inside against the Wildcats and junior center Loren Woods could prove to be a daunting task - something the Oregon Ducks learned all too well last night.

Tanner's man-to-man competition won't come from Arenas, though, it will come from the other freshman guard, Jason Gardner, who admits that he isn't too familiar with Tanner or the Beavers(10-9 overall, 2-6 Pacific 10 conference).

"I don't know too much against Oregon State since I am a youngster, but hopefully on film tomorrow I could learn a lot," he said.

Another aspect of last night's game that surprised the Wildcats was the defense Oregon was playing on Woods and sophomore forward Michael Wright - a single coverage, man-to-man defense.

"I haven't been that close to the basket with a shot without two or three defenders jumping around me in about two or three weeks," Woods said. "We worked all day on defenses that were trying to shut down the inside, but when we saw the coming out playing one-on-one, we just got back to our old selves."

UA head coach Lute Olson believes that Oregon State, or for that matter any team, can't play the double-down defense against UA anymore because the wing position players are gaining confidence in their shot.

"I don't think people can do that to us anymore, because between Luke (Walton) and Ricky (Anderson), if they get open looks now, I think their confidence level is good enough to the point where they are going to knock them down," he said.