Turnovers and defense.
In a forty-minute game that saw countless twists and turns, Oregon’s loss at the hands of Oregon State on Sunday was ultimately defined by those two sections of the stat sheet. Committing 23 turnovers and allowing the opposition to shoot 57.1 percent from the field in the second half is not a recipe for success. @@http://www.goducks.com/ViewArticle.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=500&ATCLID=205335431@@
“When you turn the ball over 23 times for 31 points, you’re not going to win many games,” head coach Dana Altman said. “We had some awful turnovers — their length did bother us, but it was just poor execution, and that’s my fault.”
Though Oregon held the Beavers to just 8 of 29 shooting for 23 points in the first half, it couldn’t carry that defensive prowess past intermission. During one particularly damaging six-minute stretch, Oregon State outscored the Ducks 22-4 to take a commanding 61-49 lead. The turnovers piled up as Craig Robinson deployed his famous 1-3-1 defense, and a plethora of miscues on defense caused Oregon to lose control of the game. @@http://www.osubeavers.com/sports/m-baskbl/mtt/orst-m-baskbl-mtt.html#coaches@@
“Changing to a 1-3-1 defense at halftime really helped us in the second half,” Oregon State forward Devon Collier said. “At halftime coach just told us to match their intensity and come out aggressive.”
For Oregon, though, the breakdown was more a result of its own mistakes than any adjustments on the Beavers’ side.
“I think it’s what we didn’t do, not what they did,” senior guard Devoe Joseph said. “When we were aggressive in (the 1-3-1), and you’ve got Johnny (Loyd) penetrating and kicking it out — we got good shots, we got good looks. Sometimes we got a little hesitant, and they stood us up and forced turnovers.”
And on the other end, the contested shots of the first half became wide open looks after the break. The Beavers shot 5-of-7 from three-point range in the second half, and guard Jared Cunningham in particular caught fire with 24 of his 27 points. If the Ducks weren’t giving up open shot after turnovers, they were getting lost in the half-court game and failing to communicate.
“The breakdown was everywhere,” Joseph said. “Just lack of communication, not having the hand up on a shooter, bad close outs … every time a team shoots the ball that well, there has to be something wrong defensively.”
Altman, too, saw a distinct difference between the first and second halves.
“I thought the first half we did a pretty good job in front of our bench,” Altman said. “But the second half, our communication … they hit five of seven threes and all seven of them were wide open. They didn’t get those open threes in the first half.”
Now, Oregon will have to do its best to put the loss in the rearview mirror. The team’s brief cameo at the top of the Pac-12 standings came to an end, and the Ducks are now tied for third in the conference.
For Altman, that’s not good enough.
“We should be further along than what we are,” Altman said. “To turn the ball over 23 times in late January, that’s not acceptable … you can’t lose games at home and be in the hunt.”
The growing period, in other words, has ended for this team. There are no more excuses to be made as the Ducks hit the road this week to face off with Utah and Colorado.
“We need to put this game behind us and learn from it and then move on,” junior forward E.J. Singler said. “This game was a step back when we needed to go forward. We need to be focused on the last half of the stretch (of conference play).”