Following Oregon’s narrow home loss on Feb. 10 against Arizona, junior guard Bryce Taylor deemed the Wildcats “player by player, probably the best team we’ll play.”
If that’s the case, the Ducks are looking good after a 69-50 victory against those same Wildcats in quarterfinal action of the Pac-10 Tournament at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on Thursday.
“This was just a great win,” assistant coach Mark Hudson said in a broadcast interview. “It’s one of the best wins we’ve ever had. To beat a Lute Olson coached team, and any Arizona team, the way we did, we’re just real proud of the way they played.”
The Ducks now advance to the semifinal of the Pac-10 Tournament today at 6:20 p.m. to face California, which upset Pac-10 Champion and No. 4 UCLA in overtime Thursday, 76-69.
In an expected high-scoring shootout between fourth-seeded Oregon and fifth-seeded Arizona – two NCAA Tournament-bound teams jockeying for seeding positioning that won on each other’s home courts during the regular season – turned instead into nothing more than a cakewalk for the Ducks that included their second largest victory of the season and their second largest victory of all time against the Wildcats.
And the Ducks appear to be returning to early-season form that led to an 18-1 start after winning their fourth straight game Thursday, one the Ducks would like to lead to a higher seeding, which could mean a visit to Spokane or Sacramento, the two closest sites for first and second-round NCAA Tournament games.
Current projections of ESPN’s Joe Lunardi have Oregon as a seventh seed playing the first two rounds in Chicago.
“We’re playing for some seeding purposes, too,” Hudson said. “Nobody wants to play in the seven, eight and nine slots. We got a win over a tournament team. That just adds to the résumé. It certainly would be nice if we could do that (play in Spokane or Sacramento).”
Regardless of where the Oregon ends up, the Ducks look well healed from their mid-season slump that saw them lose six of eight games. On Thursday, senior point guard Aaron Brooks scored 16 points, all in the first half and Tajuan Porter added a team-high 21 points on 5-of-6 shooting from three-point range – giving him the Pac-10 freshman record for three-pointers in one season.
And The Ducks’ offensive game plan was simple but effective: Drive the ball to the basket. The Ducks shot 46.4 percent and getting into the paint opened the outside shot with Oregon hitting on 11 of 20 from beyond the arc.
“We came out here on a mission,” Porter said. “We sent a good statement.”
The Wildcats shot 35 percent for the game, the second straight game Oregon’s opponent has shot under 40 percent, and Arizona’s top four scorers – Marcus Williams (6-of-20), Chase Budinger (4-of-11), Ivan Radenovic (2-of-7) and Mustafa Shakur (1-of-6) – finished a combined 13 of 44 shooting for the game. As a team, the Wildcats were just 3 of 16 from three-point range.
“We held them to 50 (points) and I don’t know that anybody can hold an Arizona team to 50 points,” Hudson said. “That’s a pretty good defensive effort.”
Arizona went cold by missing seven of eight shots to end the first half as the Ducks went on a 10-2 run to take a 34-23 halftime lead behind 4-of-6 shooting from beyond the arc and 6-of-10 overall shooting from Brooks.
They wouldn’t need a point from him in the second half and the lid remained tight for the Wildcats. The Ducks built the lead to 21 with 9:41 to play after three straight scores inside from freshman Joevan Catron and consecutive threes by Porter. Arizona closed the gap to 14 on a 7-0 run with 5:29 to play, but Maarty Leunen scored back-to-back baskets and the Wildcats again fell victim to their own shooting woes by missing seven of their final nine shots.
“If there’s a good time for your defense to be peaking, it’s right now,” Hudson said. “They have responded with such great energy and we had it from the get-go tonight. When we’re fresh, we can play. Everybody saw that at the beginning of the season.”
And they’re beginning to see that again now.
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By the Numbers:
3, 11
Number of three pointers by Arizona (3-of-16) and number of threes by Oregon (11-of-20)
19
Oregon’s largest margin of victory against Arizona since a 30-point victory on Dec. 22, 2001.
50
Arizona’s lowest point total of the season
87
Number of three pointers this season by Oregon freshman Tajuan Porter, a Pac-10 record for a freshman in one season.
1,410
Career points for Oregon senior Aaron Brooks. He passed Luke Ridnour (1,399 points) for 10th on Oregon’s all-time scoring list.