With a career night from Jordan Matthews, the California men’s basketball team beat the Ducks 96-83 on Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena. The Golden Bears (11-4, 2-0 Pac-12) also extended their winning steak to 12 games over Oregon.
Offense wasn’t the problem for No. 17 Oregon (13-2, 1-2), but like the previous game against Colorado — a 100-91 loss — the Ducks struggled on the defensive end. In fact, head coach Dana Altman and the players say it’s been a season-long struggle.
“Our guys were prepared, they were ready to play, but they just didn’t execute defensively,” Altman said after the game.
Cal retook the lead with 11:00 left in the first half and didn’t relinquish it until three minutes into the second. The two teams looked like they would be engaged in a back-and-forth battle the rest of the game but Cal seized control with 11:07 left and never trailed again.
The freshman Matthews, who averaged 7.4 points per game going into Thursday night, scored a game-high (and career-high) 32 points on 10-of-14 shooting for the Bears, who shot 52.5 percent as a team. Altman said his team gave up way too many easy looks to Cal, and Matthews was one of the biggest beneficiaries of Oregon’s poor pressure. Some of Matthews’ best looks came early, like on the first possession of the game when Joseph Young was late to close out. Matthews sunk the wide-open three, his first of three makes from behind the arc on Thursday.
“I think I was helping too long,” Young said. “I’d rather them shoot a three than get an open layup and I think I stayed on the open man that was about to go instead of getting out to my man quicker.”
Young scored 29 points on 6-of-11 shooting (54.5 percent), along with 16 made free throws on 17 attempts. But moments like the opening possession occurred several times for Young on defense.
“I thought offensively, obviously he did a lot of good things,” Altman said, “but defensively, I thought he let some things go.”
Mike Moser added 15 points and 10 rebounds but only made 6-of-18 baskets. He also played most of his minutes against Cal’s hulking forwards, Richard Solomon (6’10”) and David Kravish (6’9″).
“It’s tough when you’ve got a seven-footer and trying to back those kind of guys down,” Moser said. “I’m more of a face-up, four man at this point, so it’s tough, but I think I’m adjusting.”
Cal’s leading scorer, Justin Cobbs, added 20 points and 11 assists for Cal, and Solomon and Kravish both nearly recorded double-doubles. The entire starting five for the Bears finished with double-digit point totals.
“As coach said, if everybody just knocked off one mistake from the game, then we should be good,” Young said.
Johnathan Loyd, who hasn’t beaten Cal in his four-year career at Oregon, finished with 14 points, four assists and four steals. The bench hardly contributed, shooting 3-of-13 total.
After finishing the non-conference schedule with a perfect 12-0 record, the Ducks have struggled mightily in Pac-12 play. Their only conference win, 70-68ver Utah on Jan. 2, came on a last-second dunk by Damyean Dotson.
Oregon’s only hope to end the losing skid to Cal this season will come if its faces the Bears in the Pac-12 tournament. Thursday night’s game is the last scheduled matchup between these two teams this season.
Oregon’s next game is at 2 p.m. this upcoming Sunday against Stanford at Matthew Knight Arena.
“We really needed these two games at home,” Altman said. “We’ve gotta go on the road for three after this, so this was a big ball game for us. There’s no other way to put it.”
Follow Victor Flores on Twitter @vflores415