Washington State’s Mike Bush (left) hit the game-winning free throw with 5.5 seconds left to secure his team’s 63-62 victory over the Ducks. Oregon had eight straight wins over WSU before Thursday’s game.
Just when you thought the Oregon men’s basketball season couldn’t get any worse, the Ducks went ahead and lost to a team they had beaten eight times in their last eight matchups.
Oregon (12-10, 3-9 Pacific-10 Conference) dropped a 63-62 thriller to Washington State (10-12, 3-9) in Pullman, Wash., Thursday night. The loss was the Ducks’ fourth straight.
The Ducks had an opportunity to win the game in the closing seconds after the Cougars’ Mike Bush missed the back end of a pair of free throws, giving WSU a one-point advantage. But with five seconds on the clock, Oregon freshman guard Luke Ridnour dribbled into traffic, fell down and lost the ball to Washington State’s Framecio Little, who held on to cement the Cougar victory.
“This one got away from us,” a very tired Ducks head coach Ernie Kent told KUGN-Radio after the game. “We had them where we wanted them, but we just couldn’t turn the corner.”
The contest see-sawed back and forth, with the two teams exchanging leads seven times, five times in the second half. But the Cougars never trailed after Bush hit a three-pointer with 2:20 left in the contest. Oregon knotted the game at 60 and 62, but couldn’t pull out the victory in the end.
The Ducks led the game by as many as seven points in the first half, and led by two at the half after the Cougars closed the first frame on a 12-8 run.
Washington State picked up where it left off in the second half, outscoring Oregon 15-5 in the first nine minutes.
But then the Ducks’ Bryan Bracey took over, scoring nine points to give Oregon a 50-49 lead with 8:23 to play. After the teams exchanged leads, Bracey hit two key free throws to tie the game at 62 with 33.9 seconds left.
Bracey finished with a game-high 25 points and nine rebounds. Freddie Jones was the only other Duck in double figures with 14 points.
Kent said the loss was just a perpetuation of the Ducks’ recent pattern.
“The second half was typical of all the second halfs we’ve played this year, where we just get worn down,” Kent said. “We don’t make the tough plays when we need to make them or knock down the tough shots when we need to knock them down.”
Not many fans caught the action at Friel Court Thursday night — only 2,530 people showed up for the matchup between the Ducks and Cougars.
Oregon will travel to Seattle to take on Washington Saturday at 5 p.m. The game will be broadcast on Fox Sports Net.
“Our goal right now is to go over and beat Washington,” Kent said. “We cannot look past that right now.”