If Oregon basketball has a nemesis this season, it’s halftime.
Just five days removed from the impotent offensive showing to open the second half that doomed their effort against Oregon State it was déjà vu all over again against the Arizona State Sun Devils on Thursday.
“That’s just been a bug this year, coming out of halftime being slow,” said junior forward Joevan Catron. “There’s something about that halftime and coming out in the second half. I don’t know what it is.”
Oregon (6-16, 0-10 Pacific-10 Conference) fought the Sun Devils to a near stalemate for 18 minutes, trailing just 28-27 with 1:23 left to play in the first half, but would fail to score again before the half, while Sun Devil sophomore guard James Harden made two free throws and a layup to extend their lead to 32-27.
Oregon would also fail to score for the first 4:26 of the second half as Arizona State (17-5, 6-4 Pac-10) extended its lead to 13 points on a pair of Harden threes from the right corner and junior guard Jerren Shipp’s fast break layup.
“Harden took over the game, especially in the second half,” said Oregon junior guard Tajuan Porter. “We were just playing catch-up. It’s a tough situation.”
But unlike last weekend’s loss to the Beavers, when the Ducks turned the ball over six times in the opening minutes of the second half, this week it was just poor shooting. Four different Ducks missed jump shots during the scoreless stretch, which ended when Porter hit a three from the right wing to pull the Ducks within 10 at 40-30 with 15:34 left in the game.
It was those missed jump shots that bothered Oregon head coach Ernie Kent most, as he felt the team didn’t attack the Arizona State zone defense well.
“We weren’t effective inside. Their zone gives you an opportunity to really pound them inside. That ball needs to go in there and those bigs need to get something done,” Kent said. “When you don’t do that I thought it knocked us out of rhythm a little bit, made us kind of a perimeter team. We didn’t want to stay out there as much and we started getting a little bit stagnant that way.”
The Ducks would battle back to within seven points at 49-42 with 8:49 left but the hole they had dug for themselves was too deep to crawl out of, as Arizona State stretched the lead back to 16 before settling for the final nine-point margin.
“Obviously we’re not doing enough. There’s not enough effort or energy or whatever you want to call it.” Catron said. “I’m not satisfied at all.”
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