Hampton: More from D.C. trip Comments
Seth Tarver and Roeland Schaftenaar braved the Civil War media day mess to talk about the OSU men’s basketball team’s trip to Washington, D.C.
The Beavers met Barack Obama and toured the White House on Friday and then went out and took a big win over George Washington on Saturday with Obama in the crowd.
“When you’re on the court you kind of just play and when you come over for a time out you check to see if he’s actually there,” Tarver said. “He also had a humungous bodyguard dog next to him. We noticed him as well.”
Said Schaftenaar: “I’ve never met my own president from back home, so to meet the United States’ President was pretty special and to go to the White House was a lot of fun for us.
“It means a lot. We obviously never thought of it, coming to Oregon State, that we were going to do this, but just besides basketball it’s just amazing for us to have that experience and be able to meet the President and go to the White House and have the President at our game.”
While meeting Obama was a once in a lifetime opportunity, the Beavers came away with a key win.
“It was definitely real important, especially on the road,” Tarver said. “They’re a good team, so it was a good win for us, especially in the type of environment that was there. So it was a good win. We just need to use it as a stepping stone to just keep moving on to the season.”
Said Schaftenaar: “We had a good weekend, we got a win and that was the most important thing for us. We still got the win. The other stuff beside it was a really good experience but now we just move on to the next game and I don’t think it will be hard at all to get ready for that.
“Just with every win you get, especially on the road, your confidence will grow, so obviously from that we will be able to get better.”
OSU coach Craig Robinson praised the players for being able to play a strong game despite the distractions.
“I’ve said this many times that our guys have done a great job managing my ability to distract them and my family’s ability,” he said. “And I thought they did a wonderful job of being excited and handling that part and then getting right back to work when it’s time to get back to work, especially on a week where we really needed it, coming off a bad loss and needing to play well away from home against a good team that’s very athletic, I thought the guys did a great job.
“This is going to be the kind of season where you have to manage more than what we managed last year. It’s hard to think that, but now we have the expectation of being better than we were last year and that’s a tough thing to manage.”
I thought we practiced really well. We finally came out at the beginning of the game ready to play and we jumped right on those guys. A lot of that is my job, to get them motivated to play.
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