With 10:54 left in the second half of their game against the Stanford Cardinal, the Oregon Ducks were on the ropes. After watching their seven-point lead get whittled away in two and a half minutes, the Ducks had fallen behind by one at home.
But senior guard Devoe Joseph saved the game for Oregon, hitting back-to-back three-pointers to give his team a five-point lead that it never relinquished.
On the strength of Joseph’s career-high 30 points, the Oregon Ducks (11-4, 2-1 Pac-12 Conference) beat the Stanford Cardinal (12-3, 2-1 Pac-12) 78-67 Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena.
“I just got a lot of good looks and my team found me in open situations,” said Joseph, who also led the team with seven rebounds and was 5 for 7 from three-point range.
For Joseph, the performance against Stanford comes on the heels of a game against Washington last Saturday where he finished with four points on 1 of 13 shooting from the field.
“I feel like I didn’t approach the game any different. Washington was just one of those nights where I was letting it go and none of them were dropping,” Joseph said. “My teammates just trusted me. They trusted me in the Washington game; they found me in good spots and I missed it. And today, I made it.”
Oregon head coach Dana Altman credited Joseph’s performance as one of the game’s deciding factors.
“I’m really happy for Devoe. He really felt bad after the Washington game,” Altman said. “He refocused in practice, had a really good practice yesterday, so I’m really glad for him.”
In the first half, Oregon struggled to contain the offense of Stanford forward Josh Owens, who racked up 17 points on 7 for 9 shooting. However, the Ducks’ defense held Owens to just two points in the second half, a layup made after junior forward E.J. Singler missed a steal. That performance was also reflected team-wide, as the Cardinal was held to 14 of 37 shooting in the second half after going 13 for 27 in the first half.
Junior center Tony Woods was the main player tasked with containing Owens, and he also finished with eight points, five rebounds and three blocks.
“In the first half, he got off and he was going,” Woods said. “In the locker room, Coach really emphasized stopping him and challenged me to step up to the challenge of kind of getting him to slow down.”
Woods also credited senior forward Tyrone Nared in energizing the team, as the Woonsocket, R.I., native returned to score five points, grab five rebounds and block a shot after missing the team’s previous six games with a left knee injury.
“Tyrone is an energy guy for us,” Woods said. “We don’t have a lot of rah-rah guys that get us going in the locker room, so when Ty came back, he brought energy off the bench and definitely helped me on the block, on the weak side blocking shots.
Altman credited Oregon’s fan base — including an increased student presence — for giving his team a more energetic environment and called it “the difference” in the game.
“The students who were here tonight were great,” Altman said. “There was a little electricity in the ballgame, and we’ve been kind of lacking that at home. We haven’t given them much to cheer about, but we got energized at home.”
Apart from Joseph, the Ducks saw solid performances from Singler, who finished 13 points and four rebounds, and senior guard Garrett Sim, who finished with nine points, had four assists and had two steals. As a team, Oregon shot 25 for 52 from the field and 8 for 17 from three-point range.
The Ducks next play Sunday against California at 4:30 p.m. The Golden Bears were the last remaining 2-0 team in the conference before they fell 92-85 against the Oregon State Beavers in Corvallis.