Oregon forward Dillon Brooks made the game-winning shot against an undefeated team to stun the Matthew Knight Arena crowd on Wednesday. On Friday, he led the Ducks in a dominating fashion, despite the lack of an ESPN Top 10 play.
Brooks paced Oregon (13-2, 2-0 Pac-12) in scoring with 28 points, going 4-of-4 from 3-point range. He only one missed shot in Oregon’s 84-61 win over USC (14-1, 1-1) on Friday night.
Friday’s win, Oregon’s second defeat of an unbeaten team in a timespan of three days, extends Oregon’s home winning streak to 35 games and marks head coach Dana Altman’s 700th career win.
“We knew it was going to be a tough stretch playing two undefeated teams,” senior forward Chris Boucher said. “We stayed focused, we passed the ball — you know, we had 26 assists, so I feel like when we play together, we can be a good team.”
The Ducks were able to use the momentum gained from that last-second defeat of No. 2-ranked UCLA on Wednesday to come out strong against the No. 22-ranked Trojans.
And once the they started, they never let up. For the most part, at least.
Oregon began the game leading the Trojans by nine points after four minutes of play. Other than a brief dry spell following that, the Ducks had no trouble taming the Trojans.
“The numbers that really stick out: 24 assists, six turnovers,” Altman said. “I really like seeing that. The only time that we didn’t move the ball was in that five-minute stretch there when they went on a 15-2 run and we just took really bad shots. … Other than that four- or five-minute stretch there, I thought that we played really good.”
Ultimately, it was the turnovers that made the difference. USC committed 17 turnovers, resulting in 23 points for the Ducks.
In a change of character, turnovers were not a problem for Oregon. The Ducks entered Friday averaging 13.2 turnovers a game, but had just six on Friday night.
If anything, it was Oregon’s appetite for highlight plays that hurt the Ducks most. A few sloppy alley-oops resulted in missed points and the occasional flashy play to please the crowd overshadowed
Altman said he is happy with the strides that his team made with the win, as well as the win over UCLA. The craziest part, Altman said, is how much potential this team still has.
“It’s not negative, but just that we have so much room to grow,” Altman said. “Block outs can get so much better. Our transition defense could get so much better, so the exciting thing is that if our guys can focus and really trust each other, we’d get so much better in so many areas.”
The now 13-2 Ducks have opportunities to take another step forward when they travel to play Washington on Wednesday.
The Huskies are a team that the Ducks beat last year at home, but have had trouble beating on the road in Seattle.
“Now we’ve got to go on the road,” Altman said. ” … Now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t think we’ve got a guy on our team that’s won in Washington because none of them have been with us four years [since we last beat them]. So, we’re going to have our work cut out for us.”
Follow Kylee O’Connor on Twitter @kyleethemightee