GAME NOTES: The Oregon State Beavers put their unblemished home record on the line Saturday when they welcome the USC Trojans for a Pac-12 showdown at Gill Coliseum.

Oregon State improved to a perfect 11-0 in its own building on Thursday, as it got past UCLA, 66-55. The Beavers are off to their best start at Gill Coliseum since the 1979-80 team reeled off 13 straight home wins to start the season.

With the win over UCLA, Oregon State improved to 13-5 overall, its best record through 18 games since the 1989-90 team was 15-3. The Beavers are also 4-2 in conference action, which marks their best beginning since the 1992-93 team opened with five wins in six games.

USC, meanwhile, has not been as fortunate and comes in riding a three-game losing streak after a 75-67 loss to Oregon on Thursday. The Trojans have now lost five of their six conference games and are tied with California for last place.

Oregon State took both matchups from USC a season ago and has won seven of the last 10 meetings. The Trojans have also lost five straight in Corvallis.

Malcolm Duvivier scored a game-high 19 points with six rebounds and Gary Payton II tallied 18 points, seven rebounds and six assists in Oregon State's win over UCLA, its fourth victory in its last five games overall. Olaf Schaftenaar also added 11 points, Langston Morris-Walker had 10 points and Daniel Gomis pulled down eight boards.

The Beavers shot 51 percent from the field, hit 16-of-18 free throws and limited the Bruins to 31 percent shooting overall and 24 percent from 3-point range.

Keeping scoring to a minimum, particularly in conference action, the Beavers are producing only 57.1 ppg in the Pac 12, but at the same time allowing just 54 points to the opposition. Morris-Walker checks in with 12.0 ppg in those six league bouts, followed by Payton II who pairs his 11.5 ppg with a team- high 7.8 rpg and a total of 18 steals, the latter being slightly more than half the program's total heading into the weekend.

Julian Jacobs and Katin Reinhardt each scored 16 points in the Trojans' loss on Thursday, while Jordan McLaughlin collected 14 points, and Nikola Jovanovic tallied a double-double with 10 points and 10 boards.

Jovanovic leads the USC offense with 12.9 ppg on the strength of his 53.4 percent shooting from the floor. McLaughlin pitches in with 12.6 ppg and is first on the unit with 4.6 assists per game in an effort to get the rest of his teammates on track. Unfortunately, the Trojans are being limited to just 67.6 ppg, while the opposition comes up with 69.5 ppg thanks to 41.7 percent shooting.

USC was going to have a tough time on Saturday no matter where this game was going to be played. The fact that it's in Corvallis makes it an almost impossible game for the Trojans to win. Oregon State should extend its home winning streak and make a strong push toward the Top-25 with a win on Saturday.