Oregon hung on for a skin-of-its-teeth win Monday night.
With their NCAA Tournament hopes on life support, the Ducks (17-8, 10-4 Pac-12) overcame a second half shooting slump and a pair of costly turnovers inside the game’s final minute to sneak past Washington State 62-59 Monday in Matthew Knight Arena.
N’Faly Dante scored 13 points and collected 10 rebounds while his backup Franck Kepnang added 9 points and four blocks. Each was instrumental in rallying the Ducks down the stretch.
“Their effort… They saved us,” Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “I thought they played really good.”
De’Vion Harmon added 13 of his own, but neither Will Richardson nor Jacob Young reached double-digits.
The cold 3-point shooting — which played a large role in sinking the Ducks against Cal on Saturday — returned Monday as they missed their first seven attempts. It wasn’t until the 8:40 mark of the first half that Oregon hit one, and the Ducks shot just 5-of-19 from deep overall.
“Obviously tonight we didn’t shoot well from the 3-point line,” Kepnang said. “On this type of night we just have to grind and stay together, and I think that’s what we did.”
Amidst the erratic perimeter shooting, Oregon set up camp in the paint. The Ducks found themselves with a 30-18 lead with 3:48 to go in the first half and a 35-29 halftime lead.
Oregon’s next points didn’t come until the 13:58 mark of the second half — 13 straight misses later.
“We were stuck in the mud,” Altman said. “We don’t score a few baskets, and the baskets we gave to them, we just weren’t ready to play.”
The Cougars corralled 22 offensive rebounds and scored 21 second chance points.
In need of a spark, Jacob Young nailed a midrange jumper off of a quick crossover, then used a no-look pass to fing a cutting Guerrier for a dunk. The dunk, accompanied by a Kepnang block on the other end, awoke a sparsely packed Matthew Knight Arena as the Ducks regained the lead 45-43.
“After the struggles we had our last game,” Kepnang said. “I felt like in this game we all needed to bring a bit of extra energy and emotion.”
Then, Oregon picked up the tempo as Washington State missed 11 straight shots amidst a 3 minute scoring drought of its own. The Ducks’ big men ran the floor hard, and Oregon continued to pummel the Cougars inside, eventually building a 34-22 advantage in paint scoring.
Richardson’s only 3-pointer of the game came off an in-bounds play with 1 minute to go. The timely shot put Oregon ahead 62-53, serving as a presumptive dagger, but Oregon didn’t score again. The Ducks threw away an in-bounds pass, committed a charging foul and missed two free throws as the Cougars’ Michael Flowers (game-high 23 points) hit back-to-back 3s and nearly a third, which would have sent the game to overtime.
“We’ve got to get a lot tougher handling the ball late,” Altman said. “We’ve got veteran guards; they gotta do a much better job. Obviously the free throws have been a problem, but we had to find a way to win. This time of year, everybody knows everybody. There aren’t a lot of easy baskets.”
With March around the corner, Oregon couldn’t afford another loss. On Monday, the Ducks survived. Now they’ll advance. After concluding their homestand, they head south to Arizona where they’ll face Arizona State at 6 p.m. PST on Feb. 17 before taking on No. 4 Arizona on Feb. 19.
