He may be new to the rivalry, but senior Jay-R Strowbridge has been irreplaceable in each of the Oregon men’s basketball team’s wins over in-state foe Oregon State this season.
In Oregon’s 82-63 victory, Strowbridge, who celebrated his 23rd birthday Saturday, came off the bench to score a career-high 26 points on 10 of 16 shooting, providing a key spark for the Ducks, who used a 25-4 run in the first half to get comfortable separation early on.
The Huntsville, Ala., native led Oregon in scoring for the first time this season and was one of three Duck players to finish in double figures, becoming the only player other than senior Joevan Catron to surpass the 20-point mark this year.
“My teammates made plays for me,” Strowbridge said, who finished the game 6 for 9 from behind the three-point line. “They found me open, whether it was in the corner or transition, but we couldn’t do that without defensive rebounding.”
Oregon was outrebounded in the game, 35-28, but forced 19 Oregon State turnovers to complete the sweep of the annual Civil War series for the first time since the 2007-08 season.
“It’s real big to me,” Strowbridge said. “Definitely now, knowing the meaning of Civil War, any type of rivalry game, I know this was a big game. Of course, me being a senior, I want to play it out and hopefully have some postseason.”
For the season, Strowbridge is averaging nine points in less than 25 minutes per night, and has reached double figures in six of Oregon’s last eight games.
Strowbridge, along with juniors Malcolm Armstead and Teondre Williams, continued to give the Ducks big minutes in reserve action. Oregon used a 42-39 advantage in bench points en route to its seventh Pacific-10 Conference win of the season.
Oregon now sits in fourth place in the league standings, trailing Arizona, UCLA and Washington, heading into next weekend’s home series against the Bay Area schools.
“I’m really happy for the guys, in particular Jay-R,” first-year Oregon coach Dana Altman said. “That was really a special performance by him.”
Altman was pleased with the Ducks 19 assists on 25 made field goals, which led to a 46.3-percent shooting performance. Behind Strowbridge’s six made three-pointers, Oregon connected on 13 of its 26 shots from beyond the arc to finish with a season-high 50 percent bid.
Oregon State wasn’t nearly as explosive offensively, finishing the night 4 for 21 from three-point range, with Lathen Wallace sinking all four of the Beavers’ three-point makes.
Third-year Oregon State coach Craig Robinson said the loss was a simple matter of not making shots when the Beavers needed them most, while the Ducks seemed to make everything they put up on the other end.
“They were very well prepared,” Robinson said, “and they made shots when they had to make shots.”
Offensively, Armstead distributed the ball efficiently, finishing the game with nine points and a season-high 13 assists. Catron and sophomore E.J. Singler chipped in 13 points each, while grabbing six and seven rebounds, respectively.
Singler, however, was quick to differ the attention to his senior leader.
“Jay-R was on fire today and everyone knew it,” Singler said. “That’s what good teams do; they recognize it and they get the ball to the person with the hot hand, and he definitely had it today and he pretty much knocked all his shots down.”
Altman said putting in the extra work before after practice is starting to pay off, not only for Strowbridge, but the team as a whole.
“There’s no replacing hard work,” Altman said. “If you don’t put time on your shot, I’ve had really good shooters in the past and it’s amazing, the really good shooters put a lot of time in. I’ve never had a really good shooter who doesn’t put a lot of time in — it’s that simple.”
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