A late rally had a win within Oregon’s reach, but Dominic Artis’ layup as time expired bounced off the rim and sealed the 82-80 win for Stanford.
The loss is Oregon’s third in a row after starting their season with 13 straight wins and drops them to 1-3 in Pac-12 play. Stanford improves to 10-5 on the season (1-2 in conference).
The Ducks were down five with three minutes to play and kept Stanford at bay, trading baskets until Elgin Cook came through with a huge defensive play in crunch time that saved the game for Oregon, at least temporarily.
Cook denied Josh Huestis’ dunk attempt with under a minute to play and the Cardinal leading by four. Artis finished on the other end with a three from the corner to bring Oregon within one.
Following a Stanford timeout, Anthony Brown made one of two free throws to inch Stanford’s lead to two. A Johnathan Loyd-missed jumper with nine seconds left looked to spell the end for the Ducks, but Chasson Randle missed both free throws after being fouled, giving Oregon one last possession. Artis drove through the lane and put up a contested layup attempt that bounced around the rim before falling into Dwight Powell’s massive hands as the final buzzer sounded.
“We had good  looks,” head coach Dana Altman said following the game. “Johnny [Loyd] had an uncontested 10, 12-footer there and (Artis) got all the way to the rim and we just didn’t make them. We put ourselves in that position defensively by not getting stops when we needed them.”
Oregon’s defense couldn’t stop Stanford from making shots, but many of them were contested. The Cardinal shot 52.6 percent from the field, including 62.5 percent in the second half. Brown finished with 24 points on 10-for-12 shooting and always seemed to have a hand in his face. Randle added 23 points and six rebounds on an 8-for-14 shooting night. The only Stanford player who didn’t have a solid shooting performance was Huestis, who went 0-for-7 from the field.
Mike Moser led Oregon in scoring with 24 and grabbed six rebounds.
Oregon shot almost as well as Stanford from the field (52.2 pct), made more free throws and more threes than Stanford, yet found themselves on the losing end.
“I wish I had an answer for you but I don’t,” Jason Calliste said on what went wrong. “I don’t know. We did everything right. The only thing that bit us was the turnovers.”
The Ducks turned the ball over 15 times leading to 20 Cardinal points. Sunday marked Oregon’s first loss when committing more turnovers than their opponent (4-1).
“The turnovers in the first half really put us in a hole,” Altman said. “The turnovers throughout the game (were) 15 to 7, that’s eight extra possessions for them and they had 11 more shots than we did because of those.”
Defense and ball control are clearly two things Oregon needs to work on moving forward, especially with a three-game road swing coming up. The Ducks travel to Oregon State on Sunday and then visit Washington and Washington State during the week.
When Altman was asked about the psyche of the team, he said, “It’s not good,” but said the team’s psyche wasn’t good at the end of last season before winning the Pac-12 Tournament.
“Our character will be tested,” said Altman of the upcoming road trip.
Follow Madison Guernsey on Twitter @guernseymd