It wasn’t pretty for the Oregon men’s basketball team as they dropped to visiting Ole Miss 79-73.
In fact, it was ugly.
The Ducks, who entered this game shooting 39 percent from the outside, simply could not get their shots to go down against an unforgiving Rebels’ zone defense.
It resulted in one of their worst offensive outings of the year. They went 24-for-64 from the field (37.5 percent) and 8-for-31 from beyond the arc (25.8 percent).
On the other hand, Ole Miss’ starting five, who entered this game with just two players averaging double figures in Stefan Moody (12.9 points) and Jarvis Summers (13.7 points), finished with five overall. Moody’s 22 points on 9-of-20 shooting was a game-high.
The Rebels held the advantage in every major category and picked up their most notable road victory against the Ducks, even amid Dwayne Benjamin’s return to the court, who had recently missed a few games due to an ankle injury.
“We got beaten in almost every phase of the game,” said coach Dana Altman.
Complacency 
For Oregon, it was as simple as combining poor shot selection with an even poorer transition defense.
The Ducks, who cut the Rebels’ lead down under 10 on multiple occasions, couldn’t find any rhythm on either end of the court. Even when they did, they gave up uncontested layups.
Oregon, who trailed for most of the game, did bring the score to 71-64 with 1:20 remaining, but good free-throw shooting and relentless Ole Miss rebounding kept the Ducks out of reach down the final stretch.
It’s hard to fairly judge Oregon’s shot selection when many of its outside shot attempts were open, but from their view, it was a matter of becoming stagnant.
“I thought we settled at times,” Altman said. “We’re going to have to take a hard look at the stats and really get some guys that aren’t so optimistic about their opportunities.”
Ahmad Rorie, who was on the podium for the first time this season, felt like the Ducks were simply too content on offense and took too many three-pointers.
“We were just real stagnant, everybody standing around,” Rorie said. “We should have been pushing the ball more. We were just settling a lot.”
Work in progress 
With the loss, the Ducks now hold a 5-3 record, while the Rebels improved to 6-2 on the year. And while this was one of the key non-conference games circled on Oregon’s calendar, it merely showed that this team is still a work in progress. A lot has been made of the number of unknowns on this team and today, it held a lot of truth.
The Ducks have proven to be competitive in every game, including this one, but according to Altman, this team has a long way to go.
“I’m not sure there’s any one thing, but we got outrebounded, I mentioned the defensive breakdowns that gave them easy baskets….I don’t think we offensively executed very well, so I don’t think there’s any one thing, we just got to get better in every phase of the game,” Altman said. “That was obvious today.”
Notables
Leading the Ducks were Joseph Young and Dillon Brooks. Young, who continued his struggles from the outside, going 2-for-10, still finished with 17 points, while Brooks, Oregon’s leading scorer, recorded 21 points and five rebounds.
Benjamin added five points and seven rebounds in his return.
Oregon will now take a week off before traveling to Chicago to face Illinois on Dec. 13. Tipoff is scheduled for a 4 p.m. start.
Follow Hayden Kim on Twitter @HayDayKim