PORTLAND — In head coach Ernie Kent’s eyes, all is right in the world.
His Oregon basketball team is 5-0 after beating Massachusetts 91-76 Saturday in the third annual Papé Jam.
His two “go-to guys” led the charge as Bryan Bracey had a career-high 24 points and Freddie Jones contributed a season-high 23 points in front of 9,231 fans at Portland’s Rose Garden.
And his bench play is putting in decent numbers from a different set of players each night.
But while Saturday’s win did mark Oregon’s best start since the 1996-97 team that opened at 10-0 and its second-best opening in 23 years, it did little to make a convincing statement as to what kind of team this is.
The Ducks again outlasted their opponent in a sluggish, foul-plagued game that stretched late into Saturday night. The two teams combined shot 83 free throws, committed a total of 59 fouls and turned the ball over 40 times.
UMass head coach Bruiser Flint was not particularly pleased with his team’s 22 of 37 showing from the charity stripe.
“You can’t miss 15 foul shots on the road,” Flint said.
Kent, however, dismissed the whistle-happy referees and preferred to focus on the game itself, which he seemed to view as poetry in motion.
“[It] had all of the ingredients that would force a team to grow and we certainly were able to do that tonight,” Kent said. “We got a lot of out of this game. I was pretty pleased with their response to the challenge that was put forth tonight and the type of job that they did.
“That was a good basketball game for us to play.”
UMass entered the half trailing 50-40 after Monty Mack hit three free throws. He was fouled by Anthony Norwood while attempting a three with less than a second remaining in the first session. The Minutemen (1-3) hung in there for the first part of the second half and closed to 56-52 with 11:23 remaining.
But then the tide shifted Oregon’s way for good.
In one crazy possession, Jones drove in for a basket, missed and rebounded his own shot, only to miss again. He then jumped up and again snared his own board, and while falling down, flung up the bank shot that dropped down, much to the pleasure of the crowd.
Then, the Minutemen’s Jackie Rogers was whistled for an intentional foul on Jones, who converted both free throws at the 9:54 mark. Before the clock could resume play, UMass again gave the Ducks free points when Norwood drained two free throws from a technical foul called on Eric Williams, who elbowed Norwood. The ball remained in Oregon’s possession, and Jones made UMass pay by knocking down a jumper for the 64-52 lead.

Oregon never let the Minutemen get closer than five for the rest of the game and started to break away in the final six minutes. Twelve of the Ducks’ last 18 points came on free throws, but Jones made sure to provide the exclamation point. He received a pass from Bracey and slammed it home with just 10.9 ticks of the clock to provide the final 91-76 margin.
“We were all on the same page and we just played our hearts out,” said Bracey, who shared co-MVP honors of the game with Jones. “That’s what we have to do every night to be the team that we want to be.”
UMass was led in scoring by Mack’s game-high 26 points, but only six of those points came in the second half — a stat that didn’t escape Jones’ eye.
“It was more of a personal thing to shut him down,” Jones said. “We didn’t want him to have that monster game on us. He’s a great player and a really good shooter and he got a lot of open looks early. We just tried to take the ball out of his hands in the second half.”
Oregon’s Ben Lindquist contributed a solid 25 minutes of play, in which he scored seven points. Lindquist admits that he loves playing in the Rose Garden, where he also scored 13 points and was named MVP in last season’s Oregon win against Minnesota.
“I don’t know what it is, I like playing here and I like the energy of the crowd,” Lindquist said. “It felt good to be back here and I got a chance to enjoy the game again.”
The Ducks will turn their attention toward getting through finals week, as they don’t play until Dec. 12 at home against Illinois-Chicago.
“This is a great time for us and a great position for us,” Kent said. “We’ll take the hype and excitement of this win and let it carry us. This is where we start to grow as a team.”