The Oregon men’s basketball team lost to No. 21 Washington State Thursday night, 75-70, in the quarterfinals of the Pacific-10 Conference Tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
The Ducks’ hopes of defending their conference tournament title ended in the loss, and their NCAA tournament hopes took a hit as well, with many analysts having Oregon teetering precariously on the bubble for an at-large berth going into the game.
“I’m just going to wait and see what happens,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said regarding his team’s NCAA tournament hopes.
Oregon (18-13 overall, 9-9 Pac-10) was down as many as 20 points in the first half, but came back to within 15 at the half on a late steal and buzzer-beating three by redshirt freshman guard LeKendric Longmire.
“I think the game was lost in the first half,” said senior guard Malik Hairston, who finished with 20 points and seven rebounds. “That’s too good of a basketball team to get down that much.”
“I would have never thought we would have come down here and played a half so poorly,” Kent said. “We played a great second half of basketball. They did enough to close the game out.”
The Ducks scrapped their way back into the game and closed the gap to four points three times in the final minutes. Oregon sophomore guard Tajuan Porter hit a deep three from the top of the key to make the score 68-64 with 1:30 remaining, then followed up two Cougar freethrows with a driving layup to pull them back to within four at 70-66 with 41.5 seconds remaining.
Porter finished with 20 points, 17 of them coming in the second half. Maarty Leunen added 11 points and six rebounds.
Two more free throws by Washington State pushed the lead to six. After Porter was called for a travel with 31 seconds on the clock another Cougar free throw pushed their lead back to seven, 73-66. A driving layup by Porter cut the lead to five, and following a Derrick Low free throw, Malik Hairston would drive to the hoop to cut the lead back down to four at 74-70 with 13.7 seconds left.
Washington State (24-7, 11-7 Pac-10) would get one more free throw and Leunen missed a three-pointer to seal the final margin for the Cougars.
Derrick Low scored 18 points to lead Washington State. Taylor Rochestie added 16 points.
“That’s one of the best starts we’ve had against a talented team,” Cougars coach Tony Bennett said. “We needed that cushion at the end.”
Oregon now waits for Sunday, when the NCAA selection committee will decide their post-season fate. The bracket selection show airs Sunday at 3 p.m. on CBS.
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