CORVALLIS — For about 15 minutes on Saturday afternoon, it looked like the bottom-dwelling Oregon State Beavers (5-26, 1-17) might give the defending Pac-12 Champion Oregon Ducks (27-4, 16-2) a run for their money.
But Oregon’s pursuit of another Pac-12 regular season title would not, and could not, be stopped.
The Ducks battered down the hatches in the second half and blew the Beavers out 80-59 at Gill Coliseum to clinch a share of the Pac-12 regular season title with Arizona. With the win, Oregon also secured the number 1 seed in the Pac-12 tournament next week.
“I’m extremely happy for our players,” Oregon head coach Dana Altman said after the game. “Conference championships are hard.”
In their previous meeting this season, the Ducks rushed out to 21-0 lead after the first eight minutes of the game en route to a 85-43 thrashing at Matthew Knight Arena.
This Civil War matchup was a different story. This time, it was a tale of two halves.
The first half specifically, was a half of runs. Both teams traded stretches where they went hot and then cold from the floor.
The Beavers had a 9-8 lead at first media timeout. At the same point during January’s game, Oregon was already up 13-0.
OSU came out of the time out and quickly scored to go ahead 11-8.
“Defensively we played on edge,” Oregon State head coach Wayne Tinkle said. “We were talking. We were bumping in our zone, man to man. We were following the scheme when we were hedging, when we were plugging.”
But the Beavers’ three-point lead would be their largest, and last, lead of the game.
Oregon responded, rattling off a 14-3 run over the next five minutes for a 22-13 lead
It was starting to look like the Ducks would pull away. But instead Altman pulled Dillon Brooks and Casey Benson — who had combined for 21 of Oregon’s 22 points at the time — and the Ducks’ offense stalled.
Oregon went scoreless again, allowing the Beavers to tie the game at 22-22.
“Well a lot of that was their energy,” Altman said. “They played awfully hard early. Their defensive energy, their energy on the boards really was a problem for us especially in the first half.”
But once again, Oregon answered with its own run and took a 32-24 lead into intermission. Coming out of the break, the Ducks wasted no time jumping all over the Oregon State.
Within five minutes, Oregon had pulled ahead 50-30 to put the game out of reach.
“We said let’s come out second half and take better care of the ball,” Tinkle said. “We knew they were going to try and push and look to attack. But unfortunately we didn’t get back and defend. … Give them credit. They’re a very, very talented team.
But I thought that we had an opportunity here if we had stayed on page a little bit more, the game would’ve went down to the wire. But we didn’t shoot it very well and we didn’t defend very well. And when you don’t do those things, you’re not going to have much of a chance.”
Brooks once again lead the Ducks, scoring 25 points on 10-of-14 from field in 22 minutes of play. Benson was a key contributor off the bench, scoring 14 points on 5-of-9 shooting and three 3-pointers.
Jordan Bell also tallied a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Next up, Oregon heads to Las Vegas for the start of the Pac-12 Tournament. The Ducks will play the winner of the No. 8 seed versus No. 9 matchup Thursday at 12 p.m.
Follow Gus Morris on Twitter @JustGusMorris
Ducks beatdown Beavers, 80-59, behind second-half surge
Gus Morris
March 3, 2017
Oregon Ducks Tyler Dorsey (5) and Keith Smith (11) celebrate after a made shot by Charlie Noebel (10). The No. 13 Oregon Ducks play the Oregon State Beavers in the 347th Civil War at Matthew Knight Arena in Eugene, Ore. on Saturday, Jan. 14, 2016. (Aaron Nelson/Emerald)
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