As the clock dwindled in the final seconds, a USC player stuck his hand in Oregon senior Malik Hairston’s face, tipping his shot and placed a significant hurdle in the Ducks’ chances at entering the NCAA Tournament for a second consecutive season. The buzzer sounded with a score of 81-75 in favor of the Trojans.
Oregon (15-11 overall, 6-8 Pacific-10 Conference) is now tied with Washington for eighth place in the league. It was Oregon’s seventh loss in 10 games.
The Ducks led by as much as 15 points during the first half and led by nine at halftime, but a disastrous 20-6 stretch in the second half gave the Trojans a 57-56 lead. Oregon’s offense went cold as the Ducks missed their shots, were plagued by turnovers and USC offensive rebounds.
“I thought that was the stretch of the game right there where we let it get away from us,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said about USC’s run in a broadcast interview.
Kent, however, didn’t think Oregon played poorly by any means as the first half highlighted what a force the Ducks can be at times.
“I thought the first half was as good as we’ve played defensively all year long,” Kent said. “We did a great job of executing the game plan.”
Hairston led Oregon with 17 points while Tajuan Porter, Joevan Catron and Maarty Leunen each scored in double figures with 16, 14, and 10 points, respectively.
“I thought everyone played well, for the most part, in the ballgame,” Kent said. “It had nothing to do with our play. They just had some of the breaks go their way.”
Instead Kent placed blame on Oregon’s inability to grab defensive rebounds and stopping USC’s first shot attempt.
“We had the stops, they just got the tough rebounds,” Kent said. “It was the difference in the game where you didn’t turn it over, you got your stop but you didn’t get the rebound and didn’t give yourself a chance to really run and put pressure on them down on the other end of the floor.”
USC had 29 rebounds, 11 offensive, while Oregon had 23 rebounds and nine on the offensive glass.
Kent also voiced his displeasure with one of the referees, whom he thought took control of the game with calls against Oregon. Kent didn’t make any specific references to a particular play, however.
“You hate to put a game on officials – because you have to look at what you do – but there was a stretch in the game where the one guy, the game was just too big for him,” Kent said. “It’s like they just put them right back into the game. And I just don’t think that’s right. If (the Pac-10) is going to reprimand me, they’re going to reprimand me. But it’s bad when (an official) comes over to you and says ‘Sometimes the game’s just too big.’ and you can’t have another guy talk about his partner like that.”
Still, Kent backtracked on the officiating when mentioning O.J. Mayo, who scored a game-high 32 points for USC.
“It’s hard to complain about officiating when you give a guy 30,” Kent said. “He hit some big buckets.”
After scoring four points and committing 10 turnovers in his last game against UCLA, Mayo started slow against Oregon but quickly started to nail his shots. He finished the first half with 11 points but tacked on 18 in the final 8 1/2 minutes of the game, despite committing three fouls before halftime. He wouldn’t get his fourth until the final 24 seconds. Mayo was 5-of-7 from beyond the three-point line and appeared to hit one three from nearly 30 feet away from the rim.
“He’s a great, great basketball player and the guy is obviously going to be playing in the league (NBA) next year,” Kent said.
The Ducks will next face UCLA at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday. The Bruins won last month’s game 80-75 in Eugene.
“We need to fight and have some grit because we’re going to have to have that in the environment over there,” Kent said. “UCLA is a great rebounding basketball team and we have to play with the energy to keep them off the glass.”
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