Two days after USC handed Oregon its first loss of the season, the Ducks exacted revenge and did it to the No. 1 team in the nation, beating UCLA 68-66.
The win came as such a surprise that even as the final buzzer sounded after UCLA’s Josh Shipp missed a last-second three, senior Aaron Brooks expected there to be another of the sort of setbacks that have plagued the team over the past two seasons.
“When the buzzer went off, it was, ‘All right, is there a foul or something else that will happen?’” Brooks said. “Then I saw everybody running out on the court. ‘OK, well, the game’s over so I can celebrate.’ You don’t want to celebrate too early.”
And during post-game interviews, the emotion of the victory was almost too much for coach Ernie Kent to handle as he paused, held his head down as tears welled up in his eyes and then tried to convey how much the win meant to him and his players.
“This team, for young men to go through what they’ve gone through – for me, it’s OK, I’m an old man – but I think they will learn later on in their lives the toughness they have developed,” Kent said. “And I think sometimes when you go through so much adversity in your life, you can either come up, or you’re gonna go down, and I think to their credit they never wavered, they’ve stuck together, they’ve united even stronger.”
Brooks exemplified Kent’s assessment on never wavering. After failing to tie the USC game on free throws in the final seconds, Brooks had a game-high 25 points on 9-of-13 shooting, went 6-of-6 from the free throw line and made the game-winning shot with 13 seconds remaining.
“Aaron’s clutch. We look to him at the end of the game to take over,” junior Bryce Taylor said. “Hopefully he can continue to play at that high level.”
Although Brooks had been playing with a newfound sense of vigor since Pacific-10 Conference games started, he knew he and his teammates would need to play tenaciously to stand any chance at beating UCLA.
“We just had to match their intensity,” Brooks said. “We knew that UCLA was going to work hard for 40 minutes and they did. We had to keep playing with them and we outlasted them.”
Brooks wasn’t the only one making key shots at the end of the game, however. Junior Maarty Leunen also went 6-of-6 from the free throw line while scoring 18 points and grabbing a team-high seven rebounds.
Although the Bruins out-rebounded the Ducks 35-22, Leunen’s defense limited UCLA’s scoring through second-chance opportunities. Being Oregon’s main presence in the paint, Leunen had cuts and scrapes up and down his arms after the game.
“They’re big men. Even their guards play really physical, especially on the glass,” Leunen said.
Leunen guarded Shipp on the final play of the game – just well enough for Shipp to miss the shot.
“Leunen and Brooks were the guys that really hurt us tonight,” UCLA coach Ben Howland said. “Credit to the Ducks, this was an amazing NCAA basketball environment. They are an NCAA tournament team.”
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