The game that was expected to be for third place in the Pacific-10 Conference ended up meaning just a little bit more Thursday at McArthur Court.
It was an important win for Oregon, one that gives the team a tie for second place in the Pac-10 after Arizona lost to Washington in Seattle. That’s especially heartwarming for Oregon head coach Ernie Kent and the Ducks, who lost to the Wildcats less than a week ago.
“I think that’s a compliment to these guys,” Kent said. “For this team to be battling for second place (is great).”
Luke Jackson scored a team-high 17 points, and Oregon held off a late California surge for a 68-56 win over the Golden Bears. With the win, the Ducks improved to 5-3 in conference play.
“It was great to get through this game,” Kent said.
Winning the game meant battling a late California charge that pulled the Golden Bears (8-9 overall, 4-4 Pac-10) to within six points with 3:04 left in the second half. The Ducks (10-5) scored nine of the next 12 points en route to the win, their 36th in the last 38 games at McArthur Court.
That was a slight letdown after a first half that saw Oregon jump out to a 37-20 lead at halftime. The Ducks kept California from shooting from the perimeter, and for the most part, kept the Golden Bears from cycling the ball down low.
Oregon shot 60.9 percent in the first half and was 5 of 7 from beyond the three-point line. California held Jackson to eight points in the half, but couldn’t keep Ian Crosswhite and Jay Anderson off the boards.
“It was definitely a game we wanted to come in and get at them,” Oregon guard James Davis said. “We had a solid first half.”
The Ducks were out-rebounded by one in the half, 13-12, but led in the end by seven.
Most of those second half rebounds came in the faces of Cal players, who with the help of the Ducks turned the game into a “chippy, scrappy” affair.
“It was pretty scrappy and got chippy toward the end,” Anderson said. “It’s a pretty good rivalry between these two teams.”
Jackson led the Ducks in scoring for the seventh game in a row. Crosswhite had 16 while Davis, who suffered leg cramps during most of the second half, had 13.
Davis was 2 of 5 from the field and tied a season-high with five assists.
“They’re pretty bad,” he said of his legs. “Both calves were just knotted up.”
Defensively, the Ducks kept the Pac-10’s worst shooting team at bay, holding the Golden Bears to 45.8 percent from the field and 9.1 percent from beyond the three-point line.
Marquise Kately scored 13 points in the second half and led California with 17 points while Leon Powe, the team’s freshman sensation, had 12. Powe got into foul trouble early, earning a technical in the first half after fouling Jackson, and was 4 of 7 shooting with seven rebounds.
“We treated Oregon as the leading shot block team in the country,” California head coach Ben Braun said. “We were rushing shots, missing lay-ups and getting no fouls. We have to come away with something when we go to the hoop. In the second half, we finished better, and we had less turnovers.”
In that second half, California broke down a 17-point Oregon lead the Ducks owned at the start. The Ducks jumped out to a 23-point lead just two minutes in, but California proceeded to go on a 16-3 scoring run in the next four-and-a-half minutes.
The teams virtually matched each other until Kately’s layup with 4:41 made Oregon’s lead shrink to eight. A dunk by Kately less than two minutes later gave the Ducks urgency, forcing Kent to call a 30-second timeout.
The Ducks regrouped and held on for the 12-point victory.
“You see that all the time,” Kent said of the second-half charge. “(The Golden Bears) are a good team. They settled.

“I’m proud of this team the way they came together in the last three minutes.”
Davis started his first career game at point guard, which was necessitated after sophomore Brandon Lincoln was slightly injured during practice Tuesday.
Lincoln played six minutes in the first half, eventually ending the game playing 10. He was 2 of 3 from the field and turned the ball over twice. More than once, he was pestered by California’s A.J. Diggs, and turned the ball over at the 13:08 mark of the second half that helped the Golden Bears get to within 10.
The Ducks host No. 2 Stanford Saturday at McArthur Court at 3 p.m. The Cardinal defeated Oregon State in Corvallis Thursday and the team is one of two in the nation still undefeated.
Stanford is 17-0 for a reason.
“They all play their parts and they are good because they work together,” Kent said. “It will be a game where we have to work. They don’t beat themselves. They don’t play down to your level.”