Say goodbye to history, Oregon.
The Ducks turned a good first half into momentum in the second, and used veteran plays down the stretch that haven’t been needed all season to pull out the team’s first Pac-10 win of the season Saturday at McArthur Court, a 68-60 win over Stanford.
After leading 29-28 at halftime, Oregon led despite shooting 32 percent to Stanford’s 37.9 clip, but it was their defense that kept the Ducks in the game the entire second half.
Oregon scored 32 big points in the key Saturday, compared to Stanford’s 14.
“We’ll still see slippage and breakdowns but there just wasn’t as many of them tonight,” Oregon coach Ernie Kent said. “I thought that gave us an opportunity to hang in there.”
With 2:13 left in the game, tied at 66, Matt Humphrey hit a long three to put Oregon up by three from the corner.
Oregon wouldn’t give back the lead the rest of the game.
Stanford’s Lawrence Hill made a long two-pointer with 1:41 left in the game to pull within one point, temporarily taking the noise out of an unusually raucous Mac Court this season.
“They could have folded on us a long time ago,” Kent said of the crowd. “They kept us going and I’m just happy that these kids have grown up in front of their eyes a little bit.”
A couple of possessions later, Brown made a three-pointer from the top of the key to go up 62-58 just over a minute left.
Freshman center Josh Crittle made 1-of-2 free throws with 23 seconds left, and the Ducks got the offensive rebound back. They gave it to Tajuan Porter, who had eight points, and he was immediately fouled by Stanford’s Mitch Johnson.
He made both to go up five points at 65-60 with 14 seconds left, but when Stanford came up on its possession, the ball was stolen by Humphrey at the top of the three-point line.
The freshman guard ran the length of the court and scored while being fouled. He would make the free throw to push the lead to eight, and the final margin stuck.
The game sets up a showdown with Oregon State next Sunday. The Beavers swept the Bay Area schools this weekend.
“We really believe we are a good basketball team,” LeKendric Longmire said. “The wins don’t show for it, but we really need to get this game Sunday.”
For a full live blog of the game, check out the Daily Emerald’s sports blog, The Press Pass, at blogs.dailyemerald.com/sports.