By: Nick Lilja on 10/18/07

The term win-win might be the most misused analogy in sports. It's everywhere. The official ESPN answer. When all else fails reach for the overly vague and hazy. You can't be wrong. Got a great pitching staff with no experience? Win-win. Tiger Woods missed the cut? Win-win. Skip Bayless was fired from First and Ten? Win-win!

How the professionals get off saying this for nearly every situation plausible is befuddling. More befuddling is when the analogy is used for games between mismatched opponents. A non-power conference school is playing on the road at a power conference school? A win-win. We know.

But, think about. The power conferences rarely gain anything from one of those games. Unless they lose the game, then they gain shame and embarrassment. And fans aren't going to pay more to watch a game when the outcome is as likely as gravity.

Unfortunately the upcoming non-conference schedule for the Oregon State men's basketball team is littered with similar situations. The ticket prices are going up while the product on the court is falling faster than a parachuting paraplegic reading about Marion Jones's credibility.

Forgive the graphic nature of this reference, but the pre-season schedule is a pile of crap. And it's lying underneath a 60 year old "legendary" barn that is being renovated with a sign that reads High quality Fertilizer $5 $6. Nobody's fooled. Gill Coliseum is indeed a treasure to Oregon State and renovating might be the desired option but upping the price on fans and then offering them what is on the schedule is nauseating.

The Bengals, the Pilots, the Cyclones, the Golden Eagles, the Bears and the Bobcats. Nice non-conference home schedule. That's about as sexy as a French armpit. The best opponents are Iowa State Cyclones and Tennessee Tech Golden Eagles. Sadly, they only managed a combined effort of 34-29 overall last season.

On top of their mediocre records, Iowa State's leading scorer, senior guard Mike Taylor who averaged 16.0 ppg and 4.5 assists last year, was dismissed from the team and Tennessee Tech graduated five players including their leading scorer.

And that's the good teams. The Beavers home opening weekend is against Idaho State, and Portland who had a combined record of 22-40 last season. Then the Beavers close out their non-conference home schedule with Northern Colorado and Montana State. They were a combined 15-43 last year. Northern Colorado alone was 4-24 last season.

With that being said, the Beavers could prove to be the winningist Pac-10 team in non-conference home games this season. Hell, the Barometer sports writers could take the Beavers place and come out of that schedule with a winning record. And our starting point guard would be a former gymnast.

It seems like every year there are at least one or two games at home that give the team and the fans a good measure of the Beavers match up against the rest of the nation. There is at least one game against a nationally recognized team. A Team where the average fan could recognize a starter. A team who would be in the mix in March.

In 03-04 it was Kansas State where the Beavers won in overtime. In 04-05 it was Colorado, another Beaver win. In 05-06 UNLV came into Gill and got bounced by the Beavers. Even last season, Gill was home to two top 25 teams in Nevada and LSU.

This year the Beavers and their fans get nothing. This year in Gill there is only one team with a winning record from last season. And now fans are asked to dish out more money for seats.

That's a win-win? Good point, win-win. Totally. Or rather, it seems like this November and December are going to be nothing but lose-lose for the Beaver men's basketball team and it's fans.

The level of the opposition is too low to garner any national attention or even to gain an idea for where the team is at nationally. Playing dismal opponents at home doesn't prepare the team for the Pac-10 schedule when they will be playing against perennial powers. Worse yet, the fans are asked to actually pay money to watch The Tarver brothers take on a team that was 4-24 last season.

Maybe hating the term win-win was premature. There is a win-win situation and it falls on the student body. They can now skip games to go party and not feel guilty. Oh, right, they do that already.

Nick Lilja is a columnist for The Daily Barometer
He can also be heard on The NickelBlock on 88.7 KBVR-FM
Comments can be sent to nickelblock@msn.com