The last time the Oregon basketball program was on the same court as Ernie Kent was back in 2010 when Kent was the head coach of the Ducks.
Fast forward five years and this time when Kent and Oregon met, it was on opposite ends of the court as the Ducks faced off with Kent’s Washington State squad in a Pac-12 game.
The game in Pullman, Washington was an offensive showcase in which eight players scored in double figures but in the end, the Cougars used a late rally to win 108-99 in overtime. Joseph Young led all scorers with 32 points while Elgin Cook and Jalil Abdul-Bassit added 26 and 20, respectively, for Oregon but the Ducks couldn’t muster up enough magic in the end as Washington State out-executed the Ducks down the stretch.
With the win, the Cougars improved to 9-7 overall, 3-1 in the Pac-12, a year after winning three conference games all last year. The Ducks fall to 12-5 overall and 2-2 in the conference.
The last 40 seconds of overtime was full of entertainment and drama as a free throw by Cook cut the Cougars lead to five. When Washington State tried to inbounds the ball, Oregon’s Jordan Bell came up with a big steal and threw the ball to a wide open Ahmaad Rorie, who missed his three-pointer. On the rebound attempt, Abdul-Bassit knocked the ball out to Young for an open three and he drilled it but officials called Bell for his fifth foul of the game, thus stopping the Ducks’ comeback attempt.
Oregon was doomed by foul trouble as Dillon Brooks and Bell both fouled out while Cook and Abdul-Bassit had four fouls each to account for 18 of the Ducks’ 28 team fouls. The Ducks were also without the play of 6-foot-10 post Michael Chandler as he was still in Eugene recovering from the flu.
Washington State big-man Josh Hawkinson terrorized the smaller Ducks all night long as he finished with 26 points and 13 rebounds while DaVonte Lacy added 24 points and Ike Iroegbu chipped in 20 points.
The game was expected to be a shooting clinic with Young and Lacy, two of the conference’s top-four scorers, facing off and they didn’t disappoint as the Cougars, on a Lacy buzzer-beater, went into the half up 57-52.
Neither team was able to pull away in the second half but with the Cougars up by five and just 7:55 remaining in the game, Washington State looked poised to pull away as Cook, Bell and Young were all on the bench.
The Ducks’ bench, led by Rorie, roared back to and went on a 6-0 run to take an 83-82 lead with 6:32 to play and keep Oregon right in the thick of things.
Trailing by two with 40 seconds left and the ball, Oregon got the ball into Young’s hands after he came off a double screen. Instead of going up for the shot, young threw a pretty bounce to Cook, who had sealed his defender, for an easy bucket to tie the game up. The next possession saw the Ducks get a stop to send the game into overtime as Cook and Bell combined to block Lacy’s shot at the end.
Oregon will travel to Seattle to face off with Washington on Sunday for a tipoff at 5:30 p.m.