Ducks still looking for first Pac-10 win; face Cal on Saturday

Daily Emerald

The men’s basketball team fell behind Stanford early Thursday night at Maples Pavilion and never recovered, losing its seventh consecutive Pacific-10 Conference contest of the season, 77-55.
Oregon continued a 22-year streak of futility at Maples Pavilion, where it hasn’t won since 1986. The Ducks suffered their worst defeat of the season there last year, falling 72-43.
Oregon (6-13, 0-7 Pac-10) struggled to score in the first half, shooting 31 percent from the field and turning the ball over on six of its first eight possessions. The Ducks trailed Stanford (13-3, 3-3 Pac-10) 40-18 at the intermission.
“I just think we did not do a good job of starting the game,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said in a broadcast interview. “We’re going to have to switch some things up.”

Up Next–Oregon has one day to travel across the San Francisco Bay and into Berkeley, where another top Pacific-10 Conference team is waiting. The Golden Bears beat Oregon State last night to push their record to 16-3, 5-1 in the Pac-10, and tied for first. Oregon won at Haas Pavilion last season for the first time in the Bay Area since 2000, but this year’s Cal team has jumped out to a surprising start considering that its best player, Ryan Anderson, was drafted last season by the NBA. A large part of Cal’s success has come from junior guard Jerome Randle, who is second in the Pac-10 and averages 18.7 points per game heading into this week’s games, and adds 5.1 assists per contest. The Bears are extremely good from the three-point line, with three players in the league’s top 10 individuals, including junior forward Theo Robertson’s league-leading 58 percent. The game will be televised on Comcast Sports Net and has a tipoff scheduled for 3 p.m. The game can be heard on the radio on the Oregon Sports Network, 590 AM.

In the second half, the Ducks stayed even with the Cardinal, 37-37, but couldn’t make up the any of the first half’s 22-point deficit.
“We did a much better job of being the aggressor in the second half,” Kent said.
The Ducks shot 46 percent in the second half to bring their game total up to 39 percent. They turned the ball over 22 times to Stanford’s 13, leading to 25 Cardinal points off of Duck turnovers. The Ducks scored just four points off of Stanford turnovers.
“You can’t start a game like that,” Kent said. “Especially down here, you can’t start yourself out in a hole like that.”
Oregon was led in scoring by junior guard Tajuan Porter, who made 14 points on 4-of-9 shooting from three-point range. Next was Kamyron Brown with 11 points and freshman forward Matthew Humphrey with 10 points. Oregon shot 9-of-17 (53 percent) from three-point range in the game.
“I thought Kamyron did a good job,” Kent said of the sophomore guard’s performance. “If there was one guy who did a good job throughout the game it was him … He played well in the game.”
Freshman center Michael Dunigan finished with five points and five rebounds in 14 minutes.
The Ducks got disappointing performances from junior forward Joevan Catron and sophomore guard LeKendric Longmire, who combined for three points: two and one, respectively.
“You’re not going to beat a lot of people with your veterans playing that poorly,” Kent said.
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