Sophomore guard Jeremy Green scored all 18 of his points in the second half to help the Stanford Cardinal (12-14, 6-8 Pacific-10 Conference) complete the season sweep over the Oregon Ducks (12-13, 4-9 Pac-10) with a 72-65 win at McArthur Court last night.
Green finished 10-for-10 from the free throw line to help keep the game just out of reach throughout the second half. The sophomore was a non-factor in the first half scoring no points and grabbing no rebounds, but came out looking for his shot after halftime. He and senior Landry Fields combined to score the first 18 points of the second half for the Cardinal, while Oregon struggled to make shots in the paint.
“When we have a scoring drought, we just know we’ve really got to defend then,” sophomore Jeremy Jacob said. “We can’t give up points at the other end.”
The Chipola College transfer once again paced Oregon offensively, tying a career-high with 19 points to go along with eight rebounds in his 32 minutes of action. Freshman forward E.J. Singler also provided much of the offensive production for the Ducks throughout the night. Singler tallied a career-high 15 points and also grabbed eight rebounds during his team-high 36 minutes.
“It’s really disappointing,” Singler said. “We came into this game thinking, you know, we were ready; had a good week of practice and thought we were focused before the game. It was a big loss for us.”
Singler got the start in place of injured freshman Jamil Wilson, who went down with a sprained ankle in practice early in the week, and drew the Pac-10’s leading scorer for his defensive assignment to open the game. Fields scored 13 points in the first half and finished the night with a game-high 21 points and six boards, playing all 40 minutes.
Singler said it was the play of Stanford guard Drew Shiller that made the difference in the first half for the visitors. He connected on four three-pointers, each of which seemed to counter an Oregon run.
“They needed someone to step up because we were focused on Green and Fields,” Singler said. “Shiller stepped up and hit four threes in the first half. We give credit to him, we knew he was a shooter though, we just got lost.”
After being held scoreless for 4:57 during the second half, the Ducks found themselves down 16 with less than nine minutes remaining. Oregon then went on a 18-6 run over the next 6:06 to narrow the lead to four, but the Cardinal outscored Oregon 7-4 over the final 1:52.
“Even though we’re getting better in some areas,” Oregon head coach Ernie Kent said, “we’ve got to continue to push forward to get these guys to grind it out a little bit more through the course of the ball game.”
Oregon shot an abysmal 8.3 percent (1-of-12) from beyond the arc in the second half, and just 23.8 percent (5-of-21) on the night. Sophomore guard Matt Humphrey accounted for two of those three-point makes; he finished with 11 points and four rebounds during his season-high 31 minutes of action.
Kent said that in order for the Ducks to hang with California on Saturday afternoon, the overall guard play must improve tremendously.
“I don’t care what level you’re coaching at, you’ve got to have outstanding guard play,” Kent said. “And if you look at all your good teams, they have outstanding guard play. So, we kind of go as our guards go, and this is not blaming the game on them, they just had a bad game.”
[email protected]