Clearly, Maples Pavilion isn’t Oregon’s favorite venue.
Saturday marked the 21st consecutive defeat in Palo Alto as the Ducks (20-7 overall, 8-7 Pacific-10 Conference) met a multitude of lows in their 88-69 loss to Stanford (17-8, 9-5).
It was the Ducks’ widest margin of defeat for the season as Oregon continues to head in a downward spiral after losing six of the past eight games.
“We can continue to talk about everybody we’re playing that’s beating us is playing their best but that’s a cop-out,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said in a broadcast interview. “Again, we were right there in the game and we had an offense that was working…we just quit defending and they went on a tear.”
That tear came when the teams were tied 54-54 with 11:10 remaining. Stanford proceeded to score 20 points and only surrendered two as the clock dwindled to 3:13. After that beating, the Ducks couldn’t find any way back.
“We’ve got to get better defensively,” Kent said. “All of a sudden we could not defend the drive. We put the zone on and they drove through the zone. Defensively, we completely collapsed for the last 10 minutes of the game.”
Guards Aaron Brooks and Tajuan Porter accounted for most of Oregon’s scoring, combining for 45 points and 13 rebounds. The three other starters, Maarty Leunen, Bryce Taylor and Malik Hairston, meanwhile, contributed 24 points and nine rebounds among the three of them. Kent says the team needs to get more scoring out of those three to win games.
“We didn’t have scoring from them the other night during the Cal game, we didn’t have much scoring from them tonight either,” Kent said. “They’ve go to do a better job getting points and being aggressive.”
It was difficult, though, to remain aggressive when the team matches up against two 7-footers in twins Brook and Robin Lopez. Brook Lopez scored 25 points and grabbed nine rebounds and posed a matchup problem for anybody guarding him.
Oregon’s bench didn’t offer much relief, contributing zero points in 41 minutes. Senior Adrian Stelly came off the bench in place of junior Chamberlain Oguchi who has struggled recently.
“We’ve not got a lot of production from Chamberlain,” Kent said. “He’s shot the ball 25 percent from the three and he has a lot of breakdowns defensively.”
Stelly offered little more than Oguchi Saturday – he committed five fouls and did not score in 12 minutes of action.
Now with three games left at home, the Ducks need to find a way to win to ensure themselves an appearance in the NCAA tournament.
“We have to push through these last three games and hopefully getting some tremendous energy at Mac Court to close out our season,” Kent said. “We have to have a gallant home stand coming down the stretch.
“It’s going to come down to guys having to really step up and closing out the season in a gutsy way.”
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