CORVALLIS, Ore. — Though the Bruins still seem like they don’t want to admit it, last night’s 69-66 win over Oregon State was, in this season of lowered expectations, just about as big as they come.

The victory gave UCLA its fourth Pac-10 victory and pulled the Bruins tentatively back into the No. 8 seed in the Pac-10 Tournament.

More importantly, UCLA effectively controls its own destiny from here on out. Three games remain – a road tilt Saturday against Oregon and a pair of home games against the Washington schools next weekend – and if the Bruins can win two, the odds are very much with them.

With surprisingly little help, UCLA might even end up in sixth or seventh and avoid Arizona in the first round.

But faces were hardly gleeful in the UCLA locker room after the game. Bruin players weren’t high-fiving or joking around.

“We’re not thinking about numbers right now,” freshman Ryan Hollins said.

Their coach, as animated as he’d been all season just 30 minutes earlier, didn’t crack even a half-smile.

“I think it’s pretty much the same thing I’ve done in my seven years here,” UCLA head coach Steve Lavin said.

“It’s the whole Coach Wooden thing, where you don’t get too up or too down. I know it doesn’t make for very good sound bytes, but I’m trying to stay pretty even-keeled.”

Maybe they’re not used to being in this kind of position, playing in a fairly ugly game between teams at the bottom of the conference, slugging it out like a pair of one-armed tomato-can boxers, all for a TV broadcast that was tape delayed two and a half hours.

But this is the cold reality of a 7-17 season. Oregon State might prove to be – on a decidedly smaller scale – this team’s Kansas or Stanford.

“We really just want to be an any seed,” junior T.J. Cummings said. “Right now, beggars can’t be choosers.”

Now, if the Bruins can sweep the Washington schools, they won’t have to rely on USC to beat Washington in the season finale, like the Trojans needed UCLA to beat Washington State the last game of the Pac-10 football season.

And Oregon State might end up the odd team out, desperately needing a win over USC, Arizona or Arizona State to feel any kind of comfort.

Perhaps it took being on the losing end of a game between otherwise below-average teams to see its broader implications.

“This was a big game,” OSU head coach Jay John said. “This game mattered.”