Three weeks ago in Corvallis, the Oregon State Beavers picked up their signature win of the season in front of a sold-out crowd at Gill Coliseum. On Thursday night at Matthew Knight Arena, the Ducks had no issues outclassing their rivals to the north in a 69-54 beatdown that snapped a three-game Civil War losing streak.
Payton Pritchard rained a barrage of NBA-range threes en route to another masterful 23-point performance, Will Richardson overcame a slow shooting start and a twisted ankle to add 15 and temporary starter Anthony Mathis hit three 3-pointers to lead the charge offensively for the Ducks.
“For us, we can’t lose four times in a row [to Oregon State],” center Francis Okoro said. “We gotta come in here and play as hard as we can. We gotta get one.”
That task was made more difficult on Thursday morning when guard Chris Duarte, the team’s leader in steals and second-leading rebounder, underwent surgery to repair a broken pinky on his shooting hand. In his absence, it was a point of emphasis as a team to replace what Duarte brings night in and night out.
“We gotta make up his rebounding,” Okoro said. “We gotta make up for that. Also, steals. Chris plays really good defense…We got other guys that can do that. We just gotta keep playing.”
“He really was tough and played for five games with it,” head coach Dana Altman said of Duarte. “He just couldn’t do it anymore. He got it fixed, and now it’ll just be a matter of when [the doctors] release him.”
No one player put up huge rebounding numbers — Okoro led the team with just six — but a team effort on the glass yielded a 32-30 advantage against an Oregon State lineup that was much bigger up front.
The moment that lost the Ducks the game in early February was the five-minute-plus scoreless stretch in the second half; on Thursday, no such stretch occurred. Oregon opened the second half with a 19-4 run that blew the game wide open, and it was able to coast to victory from there.
With the win, the Ducks control their own fate in the race for the No. 1 seed in the Pac-12 Tournament, but they were playing for something much more important on Thursday night.
“Coach said if we get the win we get two days off,” guard Anthony Mathis said. “So hey, we get two days off, we get to relax a little bit, and we get to rest…That’s never happened before, at least since I’ve been here.”
“I threatened them,” Altman said. “If we won, we get Friday and Saturday off, if not we were practicing. Gotta motivate ‘em someway — they don’t gotta see me for two days and they’re pretty fired up about that.”
