There was no senior day magic at Matthew Knight Arena on Saturday as the men’s basketball team fell 88-71 at the hands of Stanford.
In the last home game for seniors Jay-R Strowbridge and Joevan Catron, Oregon (14-14, 7-9 Pacific-10 Conference) was overwhelmed by tough defense and long-range shooting from Stanford (14-14, 7-10 Pac-10).
“It didn’t look like we had the same energy that we’ve played with,” head coach Dana Altman said. “We looked a step slow on everything.”
Feeding off of the home crowd, the Ducks got off to an energetic 8-0 start in the game’s opening minutes. Stanford, however, quickly rebounded and fought back to take a 21-18 lead at the 10:00 mark of the first half.
Oregon struggled to put the ball in the hoop, and went more than four minutes without a field goal. Junior point guard Malcolm Armstead finally made a three-pointer at the two-minute mark to cut the Cardinal’s lead to 36-32, but Stanford responded with a 7-2 run to close the half with a 43-34 advantage.
Oregon had already compiled seven turnovers at the intermission, and Stanford had 14 points off of those giveaways. The Cardinal also put together a blistering 54.8 percent performance from the field in the first half, including four three-pointers.
For the players, nothing Stanford had done came as any surprise. They simply were not executing.
“We knew what we had to do,” freshman guard Johnathan Loyd said. “But we didn’t execute on either side of the ball.”
Things only became worse in the second half, as the Cardinal continued to shoot at a high clip while Oregon never seemed to find a consistent rhythm. Stanford scored the first six points of the half, part of a 10-2 opening run.
Down 53-36, Oregon never truly recovered.
Stanford forward Josh Owens continued to dominate the paint, building off of his 17 first half points. The Ducks had no answer for him on defense, and his four blocks played a key role in shutting down Oregon’s paint presence.
“He was a beast in the middle,” Loyd said. “He rebounded a lot, got a double-double and was playing harder than we were. Their whole team was playing harder than we were.”
With 9:53 remaining, a three-pointer from Armstead brought Oregon back to within 13. Yet, Stanford continued to respond with jump shots of its own, and the team’s collective hot hand never seemed to cool down.
The lead soon ballooned to 20, though the final margin ended up being 17 as Stanford came away with the 88-71 victory.
In the end, Owens scored 14 points in the second half to finish with a career-high 31 to go along with 11 rebounds.
Stanford center Dwight Powell also finished with a double-double, compiling 11 points and 11 rebounds to go along with three blocked shots. For Altman, the Cardinal’s length proved to a key difference maker in disrupting Oregon’s offense.
“They got the eight blocked shots,” Altman said. “And that definitely changed the game and turned it around a little bit, no doubt.”
Perhaps the most significant disparity on the final statistics sheet came in the form of field goal percentage. The Ducks shot just 36.7 percent from the floor, while Stanford finished at 59.3 percent.
In Strowbridge’s eyes, it was a sign that the Ducks had abandoned their defensive mindset.
“Before we started winning all these games, we would score points and lock down defensively,” Strowbridge said. “I felt as if we kind lost our identity, just scoring points and not really realizing that we’re giving the other team easy baskets.”
With two more games remaining on the schedule, Altman can only look forward.
“We’ve just gotta take tomorrow off, and come back Monday and go back to work,” Altman said. “It was not a good performance.”
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Oregon struggles on both sides of the ball against Stanford
Daily Emerald
February 26, 2011
Michael Ciaglo
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